Redlining newspaper subscriptions

Profiling has a negative connotation these days, but it's a tool some publishers use in search of the "right" subscribers to pitch their advertisers. Demographic information such as incomes, education, families with children, likelihood to make major purchases in the coming year, etc., are among the factors that attract advertisers to specific media, whether it's print, online, broadcast or billboards. 

Makes a lot of sense to fine-tune your product, right? Yes and no. Such profiling can be misused, such as when banks or health providers discriminate against people in areas home to higher percentages of minorities. Such discrimination is termed "redlining" (think of using a red marker to draw borders on a map).

Given that sensitivity, it's not often such profiling hits you in the face, as it did me recently. 

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