Comment by juiceland

It is the fact that the data are used to influence the behavior of customers.

There is a big step between “we observe the behavior of user segments and predict that the company will sell x units at this time and place” and “these individual users behavior is such that we can influence them to purchase what they otherwise might have not purchased if we perform the following actions.” That is behavior modification on a large scale.

If you’re interested in developing a more robust view of this topic, I highly recommend “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” by Shoshanna Zuboff and “We Have Been Harmonized” by Kai Strittmatter. They go into detail about what these systems are designed to achieve on a population scale.