Quote Originally Posted by Honky Tonk View Post
That's been going on for years, before the internet and before Google. Newspapers sold subscriber information to other interested parties. You order a magazine subscription and three other "trial subscriptions" show up. Make a donation to the Biafrin Baby Charity, and other charities show up in your mailbox. Now with all things being electronic and instantaneous, a lot more ground gets covered more quickly.
Not only that, but those phone calls you used to get trying to give you a vacation to Orlando or the Bahamas if you will only sit through a vacuum cleaner demonstration? You weren't randomly picked from a phone book. All those magazine scrips, donations, etc got you put into a book that was in address order and sold to companies who wanted to target geographic areas,.