Today, I can find a supplier for any widget I can think of on Alibaba. This wasn't possible in the 80s and 90s. I personally know someone who got rich buying toys in china and selling them in Europe. His business failed around 10 years ago, because his customers started buying direct.

That's the sort of "information" the article has in mind. Google's or Facebook's vast tracking of online behaviour is, well, really big. But it has very little relevance to the supply chain.