Consumer buying patterns and browsing behaviors are constantly changing in the aggregate. It's not about an individual, it's about "trends".

And of course, a lot of it is also complete bullshit, as you suspected. People with MBAs in marketing are pretty good at justifying their parasitic existence to gullible executives.

It's not that all of the data is useless. Every business needs some information to compete. But, these data miners have gone deep into the rabbit hole of "business intelligence" and are often hoarding information its own sake and to look good to the boss.