A woman who asked us to withhold her name says she was shopping online at Victoria’s Secret and somehow got a follow-up email about an item she placed in her cart but held off on ordering. The woman is mystified because she’s certain she didn’t sign on to the site.

She writes:

I was browsing through Victoria’s Secret online this past Saturday, and I added a shirt to the shopping cart, but did not sign in. I have ordered from their website in the past, and signed up for an account way back then. (I do not have a store card). I only sign in during check out because I don’t want to see my inbox cluttered with those “You left something in your cart and forgot to buy it” emails.

This morning, I checked my email, and I had a helpful reminder about the item in my shopping cart, and that the item was “about to expire”.

I do not enjoy receiving those emails in general, but this in particular really rubbed me the wrong way, because I never logged in. It feels stalkerish, and it could just as easily have been a friend browsing on my computer. I would expect some level of anonymity if I chose not to sign in, and do not want to be nagged by VS. I don’t like the idea of my IP and email address being stored and abused without my permission, hence I am writing this email.

VS shoppers, has anything like this happened to you? Techies, what would wizardry would it take a site to pull off such a spying mechanism?

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