Ad for something I *looked at* in store

Let's get this straight: a guy walks into Ross, fondles a package of insoles, decides he doesn't need them, keeps his lips zipped and his phone in his pocket, then opens Google at home and is greeted by the very product he considered for a split second. This is not a coincidence. This is the terrifying new frontier of predictive surveillance, where the market itself appears to have developed psychic abilities. For years, we've all heard the old "your phone is listening to you" theory, and for years, skeptics explained it away with location pings, purchase histories, and search data. But what excuse remains when no search, no words, and no digital trail exist? The man didn't even have his phone out in the aisle. Unless he had microchips embedded in his sneakers—which, let's be honest, is not outside the realm of possibility—retail tracking technology has achieved something far stranger than listening. This is pre-commerce precrime, folks. You haven't bought the insoles yet, Google, but apparently your "personalized shopping assistant" already knows that your plantar fasciitis is coming for you. Soon, ads will arrive before desire, before thought, before existence. Fast food for unborn infants. Funeral plans for eggs not yet fertilized. This is the invisible hand of capitalism, finally growing a finger and pointing it directly into your soul. Whether this is an algorithmic fluke, a terrifying breach of cognitive privacy, or some kind of ad-genie living in the fluorescent lights of Ross Dress for Less, the Weekly Weird News investigation team urges you to cover your mind with more than just tinfoil. The aisle of discounted orthopedic aids has become a psychic battlefield, and the only winning move is to never look at anything, ever again. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Weird/comments/1w5xnph/ad_for_something_i_looked_at_in_store/