Life is no algorithm. Regards, Gillian

[marylander1940]

Dear Tech Companies:

 

I know you knew I was pregnant. It's my fault, I just couldn't resist those Instagram hashtags - #30weekspregnant, #babybump. And, silly me! I even clicked once or twice on the maternity-wear ads Facebook served up. What can I say, I am your ideal "engaged" user.

You surely saw my heartfelt thank-you post to all the girl friends who came to my baby shower, and the sister-in-law who flew in from Arizona for said shower tagging me in her photos. You probably saw me googling "holiday dress maternity plaid" and "babysafe crib paint." And I bet Amazon even told you my due date, January 24th, when I created that Prime registry.

 

But didn't you also see me googling "braxton hicks vs. preterm labor" and "baby not moving"? Did you not see my three days of social media silence, uncommon for a high-frequency user like me? And then the announcement post with keywords like "heartbroken" and "problem" and "stillborn" and the 200 teardrop emoticons from my friends? Is that not something you could track?

 

You see, there are 24,000 stillbirths in the United States every year, and millions more among your worldwide users. And let me tell you what social media is like when you finally come home from the hospital with the emptiest arms in the world, after you and your husband have spent days sobbing in bed, and you pick up your phone for a few minutes of distraction before the next wail. It's exactly, crushingly, the same as it was when your baby was still alive. A Pea in the Pod. Motherhood Maternity. Latched Mama. Every damn Etsy tchotchke I was considering for the nursery.

 

And when we millions of brokenhearted people helpfully click "I don't want to see this ad," and even answer your "Why?" with the cruel-but-true "It's not relevant to me," do you know what your algorithm decides, Tech Companies? It decides you've given birth, assumes a happy result, and deluges you with ads for the best nursing bras (I have cabbage leaves on my breasts because that is the best medical science has to offer to turn your milk off), DVDs about getting your baby to sleep through the night (I would give anything to have heard him cry at all), and the best strollers to grow with your baby (mine will forever be four pounds, one ounce).

 

And then, after all that, Experian swoops in with the lowest tracking blow of them all: A spam email encouraging me to "finish registering your baby" with them (I never "started," but sure) to track his credit throughout the life he will never lead.

 

Please, Tech Companies, I implore you: If your algorithms are smart enough to realize that I was pregnant, or that I've given birth, then surely they can be smart enough to realize that my baby died, and advertise to me accordingly - or maybe, just maybe, not at all.

 

Regards,

 

Gillian

 

Op note: Her baby was stillborn, but the ads just kept coming. Tech companies know so much about us, and so little at the same time. Life is not an algorithm yet somehow their software missed the bad news and they just assumed they had to keep bombarding her with more baby products and she had to click to stop watching ads and was asked every single time: "Why you're not interested in this product?"

[+ E.T.Bass]

I didn't buy those black high top ECCO shoes on Zappos last week and now the image haunts me everywhere I go, except here, although I expect most of the information we type on here is mined by search engines, right?

 

That said, does the idea that the Experian database knew of a pending birth read like one more invented thing on the internet that gets people upset?

 

If you agree with me then please...……..yada yada yada yada yada.

Edited December 15, 2018 by E.T.Bass

[marylander1940]

I didn't buy those black high top ECCO shoes on Zappos last week and now the image haunts me everywhere I go, except here, although I expect most of the information we type on here is mined by search engines, right?

 

That said, does the idea that the Experian database knew of a pending birth read like one more invented thing on the internet that gets people upset?

 

If you agree with me then please...……..yada yada yada yada yada.

 

I think she got upset because she received a lot of ads about the upcoming birth of her son because her posts and her friends replies. Unfortunately after she posted about the stillbirth the ads kept coming up and made it annoying for her to check her email, facebook, etc. without being reminded of the baby she lost.

 

Folks get upset on here too, imagine being in her place!

[+ FreshFluff]

I can't imagine how painful it would be to give birth to a stillborn baby. But third trimester miscarriages are rare, which is why Experian doesn't alter its code for that possibility. Or maybe they do, but the keywords she used ("preterm labor") didn't trigger the miscarriage condition in the code.

Edited December 16, 2018 by FreshFluff

[+ FreshFluff]

I can't imagine how painful it would be to give birth to a stillborn baby. But third trimester miscarriages are rare, which is why Experian doesn't alter its code for that possibility. Or maybe they do, but the keywords she used ("preterm labor") didn't trigger the miscarriage condition in the code.

Edited December 16, 2018 by FreshFluff

[marylander1940]

I can't imagine how painful it would be to give birth to a stillborn baby. But third trimester miscarriages are rare, which is why Experian doesn't alter its code for that possibility. Or maybe they do, but the keywords she used ("preterm labor") might not have triggered the miscarriage condition in the code.

 

Good point yet there should be a way for a person to click and stop receiving ads on a certain matter instead of having to do it one by one and been asked "why" every single time as stated on her open letter.

[marylander1940]

I can't imagine how painful it would be to give birth to a stillborn baby. But third trimester miscarriages are rare, which is why Experian doesn't alter its code for that possibility. Or maybe they do, but the keywords she used ("preterm labor") might not have triggered the miscarriage condition in the code.

 

Good point yet there should be a way for a person to click and stop receiving ads on a certain matter instead of having to do it one by one and been asked "why" every single time as stated on her open letter.