Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm actually surprised that retailers haven't started surcharging people paying in cash by now in order to drive all of individuals' transaction data into the panopticon.
Why would retailers care? They are not making money from the payment information; the credit card company is. Further, they're not making money from the fact that people use the credit card; it's again the credit card company. I don't think that adding a surcharge for cash purchases (or, more realistically, a "discount" to credit card purchases) would make much sense economically? (Except in situations where handling…
Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores
71–80 of 252 posts
Re: Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores
#72FTA: "Google says it has access to roughly 70% of U.S. credit and debit card transactions through partnerships with companies that track that data." Wow.
So the only way to break the circle is to purchase with cash... And now fewer and fewer people buy with cash, to the point some Nordics plan on doing away with cash as much as possible.
Re: Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores
#73Now I will have to seriously consider getting off the Google ecosystem now. Deactivating facebook was okay, but Google might be tricky considering many of website accounts use Google authentication.
Okay, this is a small rant that is not directly aimed at you, so nothing personal. This is aimed generally more at people in the privacy at all costs camp and the like. If there's some viewpoint I'm missing here I'd also love to hear it, so it's not really a mean-spirited rant either. Google owns the internet at this point. For general use purposes, they ARE the internet. So avoiding them should really have at least…
You are the product.
By using these services, your beliefs, habits, work, and by extension you yourself, are slowly being turned into a product for consumption by, at best, profiteering business executives, and at worst, totalitarian regimes.
Does facebook want you to find and actually spend time with people? No, they want you hooked on their website endlessly posting cat pictures and looking at cat pictures from your "friends". By doing this, they make you lonely and isolate you from actual social contact; there's an entire generation of kids who think socialization is facebook. Facebook is loneliness and isolation and when they have you there, on facebook, isolated, they own you.
Integrate your Facebook with Spotify? Someone pays spottily to run subversive, politically motivated songs. Who do you talk about that for reference? To know if the politics or history you are being sold are factual.
Integrate your Facebook with Uber? Uber now knows your approximate income and how gullible you are, and will charge you a consummate rate.
Integrate your Facebook with your New york times subscription? All of the MSM outlets use parametric targeting of readers to display articles to them think they will identify with. If someone pays them advertise to passionate democrats in order to get them to donate, chances are, you will see a never-ending news "feed" (Love how they call this a feed, like a cattle feed) of tabloid news which provides you with all kinds of "calls to action" in order to donate. You'll see stories on how chocolate cures cancer, then an ad from nestle. The more information they have on you, the more precise and intense the targeting.
And you won't know, you can't know, because engaging in that degree of paranoia is crazy.
What do you get by opting out completely?
Advertising works by making you unhappy, by manipulating you to be unhappy, by whispering terrible and horrible things in your ear and hoping you buy a lifetime subscription of unhappiness. It tells young, beautiful women they need makeup in order to be beautiful. It tells ingenious IT geeks they aren't good enough without knowing framework X or having product Y. It tells fat people to buy dieting products that never work, that can't work, because if they were to cure the problem, they couldn't ever be sold another approach. Go search google for weight loss right now; How useful is ANY of that information to someone who wants to lose weight? The observation being, google is providing you with nothing, absolutely nothing, because you_are_the_product.
While you are ingesting advertising, you will never be content. You will never be fulfilled. And worse, the more time you spend in the bubble, the more of what and who you are will be configured to be that unhappy, totally messed up amalgamation people the big businesses wanted you to be, and the longer it will take to de-consumerize.
This is what psychological warfare has become; what the studies and sciences of psychographics, psychovisuals, psychoaudio, public relations, communication and marketing has become.
If you opt out, you retain your freedom to think for yourself, act for yourself, and be yourself. You retain your ability to be content and happy. You get to have real friends. You no longer exist in the 7th circle of hell.
Re: Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores
#74Re: Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores
#75FTA: "Google says it has access to roughly 70% of U.S. credit and debit card transactions through partnerships with companies that track that data." Wow.
https://www.revolution-payments.com/requirements-for-level-3...
> Level 3 processing can benefit businesses who sell to other businesses or government by lowering your transaction cost by as much as 1.50%.
> Line Item Details:
Of course, if they are like one of the places I worked...they just turn it on for everyone and pass it along regardless.
Re: Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores
#76This is likely unpopular, but this makes my job exponentially easier. The number of "What is that click worth" questions to us data driven marketing folks by small businesses effectively closes off a lot of us that focus primarily on the data from that market. With this, there is very real money to be made with small businesses that were too skittish to advertise before. We've been playing with Facebook's online to o…
Re: Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores
#77Now I will have to seriously consider getting off the Google ecosystem now. Deactivating facebook was okay, but Google might be tricky considering many of website accounts use Google authentication.
Okay, this is a small rant that is not directly aimed at you, so nothing personal. This is aimed generally more at people in the privacy at all costs camp and the like. If there's some viewpoint I'm missing here I'd also love to hear it, so it's not really a mean-spirited rant either. Google owns the internet at this point. For general use purposes, they ARE the internet. So avoiding them should really have at least…
By closing the curtains in your bedroom when you're about to get busy with your partner, what do you actually gain? Likely, nothing at all.
I place a not-inconsiderable weight on not feeling like I'm being watched and recorded every second of the day and night. By controlling which data I give companies like Google and Facebook, I significantly reduce this creepy feeling and so gain a significant amount of peace of mind.
Re: Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
So the only way to break the circle is to purchase with cash... And now fewer and fewer people buy with cash, to the point some Nordics plan on doing away with cash as much as possible.
The reality in the Nordics is already that most people never use cash. I cannot recall making a cash transaction in the past 18 months.
It's mostly older people using cash anymore.
Re: Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
As opposed to going kicking and screaming, all to the same end? The metaphor is still flawed thoguh doesn't add anything to the conversation here. What exactly is the equivalent of death here? Google has all your data - what could they do with it that will affect you realistically? Or if someone malicious gets it? My point is that the likelihood of malicious activity is low, and so are the consequences. Am I missing…
We live in the information age, when information is the ultimate power. One danger is that with all that data about you and very advanced AI/ML tech Google can push you into making irrational purchase decisions (yeah, I know YOU are special, and advertising doesn't work on YOU) - e.g. buying a red sports car in your 40s. The other is this data will be available to NSA, GCHQ, etc. and their controlling governments, po…
Moving on, the remainder of the argument relies on the assumption of an antagonistic state, which if true, means you have a much bigger and immediate problem in the first place. Google or not, China seems to be doing pretty well as a surveillance state so that doesn't seem too convincing either.
So I don't think that opinions will change without a string of high profile incidents that substantiate both of the concerns you mention.
Re: Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores
#80There are anonymized credit card services, including pre-paid and other solutions. The following is based on notes at least a year old, and I haven't tried them: * Abine * Final https://getfinal.com/ * Privacy Inc. https://privacy.com/ Also, many pre-paid cards require the user to identify themselves before the card is activated
I didn't downvote, but some of those only help so much. Your name is still in the track data, and for credit you generally have to input a zip code. For online purchases, you're entering an address as well.
That's why it's such a big deal when companies sell your info. Merging silos dramatically increases the amount that can be inferred from each piece of information.