Is online cutomization — with the privacy issues that accompany it –going too far in  order to target offerings for specific consumers? Urban Outfitters provides a good case study of good intentions and overrreaching.

As Natasha Singer writes in the New York Times: “Dmitri Siegel, until last year a marketing executive at Urban Outfitters, thought he had hit on a novel idea to personalize the company’s Web site for frequent customers. He would make it easier for female shoppers to peruse women’s apparel and for men to concentrate on men’s clothing by altering the site’s product displays to match a user’s gender. With the help of a Web site testing and optimization company called Monetate, Mr. Siegel experimented with gender personalization on the site. But it roundly backfired. It turned out that many female Urban Outfitters customers regularly bought men’s items and they took offense at being subjected to gender-based marketing.”

Photo by Yuko Shimizu/New York Times