You went to Home Depot for a garden hose. According to a new federal lawsuit, the store walked away with something far more valuable than your money: you.
The class action, filed July 1 in federal court in Virginia, accuses Home Depot of selling customers’ personal information — names, contact details and purchase histories — to third parties without notice or consent.
The suit says the retailer “profits handsomely from the unauthorized sale and disclosure of consumers’ purchasing patterns.”
At the center of it all is Home Depot’s in-house advertising business, Orange Apron Media, which the lawsuit says lets brands target shoppers on the retailer’s website, social channels and in stores. The complaint claims all this violates Virginia’s Personal Information Privacy Act.
Home Depot hasn’t been found liable for anything, and lawsuits are allegations, not verdicts. But here’s what you need to understand: This isn’t really a Home Depot story.
It’s a retail story. Nearly every big chain in America now runs an advertising business fueled by data about you. I’ve spent decades watching companies find creative ways to make money off their customers, and this one’s a doozy.
Here are five ways stores turn your shopping habits into their profits — and what you can do about it.
1. The ad agency hiding inside the store
Ever wonder why every retailer suddenly has a media network? Walmart has one. Amazon has one. Kroger, Target, Best Buy and, yes, Home Depot — with its Orange Apron Media.
These networks sell advertising, and their secret weapon is you. Brands pay big money to reach shoppers based on what those shoppers actually buy, and no one knows what you buy better than the store that rang you up.
How big is this business? According to a forecast from research firm eMarketer, U.S. advertisers will spend about $71 billion on retail media in 2026.
That’s not a side hustle. That’s a profit machine. And the raw material feeding it is your name, your email and your purchase history.
2. ‘Clean rooms’ that aren’t as clean as they sound
When retailers get asked about all this, they point to something called a “data clean room” — a system that supposedly lets brands use customer data in a privacy-friendly way.
Don’t be too comforted. Home Depot isn’t the only retailer in the crosshairs. Best Buy was hit with a nearly identical class action in April over its own ad network, Best Buy Ads, and its use of a clean room operated by data firm LiveRamp.
According to that complaint, as reported by legal news site Top Class Actions, Best Buy’s ad business boasts 15,000 unique attributes for enriching customer data and claims it can tie 93% of transaction revenue to specific individuals.
Attributes. Enrichment. Clean rooms. Notice how the industry jargon makes surveillance sound like a spa treatment? It’s the same industry that gave us sneaky online tricks designed to manipulate shoppers.
Even the Federal Trade Commission has warned that clean rooms don’t automatically prevent the improper disclosure of consumer information. In other words: A fancy name doesn’t make a data sale something else.
3. E-receipts that share more than your receipt
“Would you like your receipt emailed?” Sounds harmless. Sometimes it isn’t.
In Canada, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner found that Home Depot’s Canadian arm spent years sharing e-receipt information — encoded email addresses plus in-store purchase details — with Meta, Facebook’s parent company, without customers’ knowledge or consent.
The data helped measure whether Facebook ads were working, and Meta’s terms even allowed the company to use the information for its own purposes. Home Depot stopped the practice in 2022 after the investigation began.
That case involved Canadian law and Canadian stores. But it answers a question every American shopper should be asking: What exactly happens to my email address after I hand it over at the register?
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4. Loyalty programs that buy your life for pennies
Loyalty programs feel like a gift: Scan the app, save a buck. But think about what you’re really trading.
Every scan links your identity to everything in your cart, every store you visit and every hour you shop. That running diary of your life is precisely what makes retail media networks so valuable to advertisers.
I’m not saying quit every rewards program. Some are worth it. Just understand the deal: You’re not getting points for free. You’re selling a detailed record of your habits, usually for pennies on the dollar.
And loyalty should run both ways. A recent study found the stores Americans trust most aren’t necessarily the ones they spend the most with — something worth remembering when a retailer asks for your data along with your dollars.
5. Ads that follow you out of the store
Here’s where it all comes together. Once a retailer builds a profile of you, that profile doesn’t stay in the store.
The Best Buy complaint describes tracking a customer from their first click on a targeted social media ad through later purchases and even repairs.
And retail media networks increasingly sell off-site advertising, meaning your shopping history helps companies find you on websites, apps and streaming services that have nothing to do with the store.
Ever bought one item and then been chased around the internet by ads for it? Now you know one reason why.
How to fight back
You can’t single-handedly stop a $71 billion industry. But you can make yourself a much less profitable product. Here’s how:
- Use your state’s opt-out rights: Twenty states now have comprehensive privacy laws in effect, according to policy research firm MultiState. Look for “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” links at the bottom of retailer websites and use them.
- Turn on Global Privacy Control: This free browser setting automatically tells websites not to sell or share your information. California’s attorney general says businesses covered by that state’s privacy law must honor it. It’s built into some browsers, like Firefox, and available as an extension for others.
- Think twice about e-receipts: Paper receipts don’t follow you around the internet. If you want digital copies, consider a dedicated email address used only for shopping. It limits how easily your purchases can be matched to the rest of your life.
- Audit your loyalty apps: Keep the ones that genuinely save you money. Ditch the ones that don’t. And check each program’s privacy settings, since many let you opt out of data sharing while keeping the discounts.
- Watch your back: The more places your personal information lives, the more places it can leak from. Know the warning signs of identity theft, and take a few free steps to protect your identity before there’s a problem.
The lawsuits against Home Depot and Best Buy will take years to play out, and the companies may well prevail. But you don’t have to wait for a judge to decide how much of your life is for sale.
That decision, at least partly, is still yours.
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