I don't think the Internet means the end of targeted offers; it means the end of sneakiness. Those are two different concepts.

Case in point. A few weeks ago I got a card from FirstUSA informing me that if I spent at least $4000 with my BA VISA card in November + December, they'd double the miles. Fine. I posted this news on FlyerTalk in the British Airways zone. Almost immediately a bunch of other BA flyers posted the bonus mile offer versions THEY had received -- some better than mine, some worse. Made a lot of people feel miffed -- me included.

If FirstUSA wants to classify cardmembers according to their historical activity levels and calibrate different bonus packages for different member classes, that's beautiful. But do it in the open; make the tiers and calibration rationales public. When the card issuer (or whomever) tries to keep you in the dark, and make you believe that the targeted offer you got is the only offer there is, THEN customers get mad and the target-marketing stuff backfires owing to Web information sharing. That's what Randy is talking about, I think.

It doesn't follow that because customers can no longer be isolated from one another, you can't target-market. You just have to make your targeting apparatus fair and open to view.