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Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores

latimes.com

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Re: Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores

#241

Post by PrivWeeble »

hammock wrote: post #214
singron wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After studying the slides, it looks like they do a Diffie Hellman-like exchange of user identifiers. g_i = Google's identifier for customer i. s_j = Merchant identifer for customer j. If g_i == s_j then customer i == j. These identifiers might be phone numbers or email addresses or other identifiers that both parties have. Neither party wants the other to learn any identifiers it doesn't already known about. So Googl…

It's not a new and a very common process. A personal identifying variable is calculated in the same way on both sides (usually by a third party), then hashed. Hashed values are then compared/matched.

Which is better than exchanging the raw personal identifiers, but still isn't "safe" from a privacy point of view. One or both parties often hold PII and other personal info, and they know which of that is associated with a given hash. So what they learn through exchanging hashes is also (linked to) PII.

Furthermore, although reversing a one-way hash is problematic, computing hashes for known inputs (such as an email address) is straight-forward. So it is possible to just test or probe datasets for known identifiers and persons. The potential for hash collisions is of little comfort.

Re: Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores

#242

Post by bonzini »

tskaiser wrote: post #163
bonzini wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some things that must have a separate opt-in from the bare minimum that's necessary to provide the service. Typically, there are three bullets on European privacy forms: handling personal data to provide the service, handling personal data for commercial and advertising purposes, sharing personal data with third parties (usually for commercial and advertising purposes). Pre-printed forms can only have the f…

But can ticking those boxes be mandatory for using a service? ie. "if you don't tick all three boxes you won't have access to Google Search"?

No. Anything not strictly necessary must be opt-in.

See also: https://www.google.it/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Re: Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores

#243

Post by bonzini »

treyfitty wrote: post #200
bonzini wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this also true of Amex (which makes more money from each credit card transaction than Visa and Mastercard)?

Yes. https://vimeo.com/155746893 http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160517006038/en/Viac... They used to have a "Business Intelligence Group" which acted as a Consulting firm to corporations who want to answer questions like "Where should my company set up more stores?" The group often sifted through their customer data to answer that question.

That's reasonable, and different from selling it to third parties.

Re: Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores

#244

Post by frogpelt »

Shivetya wrote: post #211
pjc50 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that Roosevelt's famous "four freedoms" included two "freedom of" and two "freedom from". The "freedom from" elements have been de-emphasised lately as they're extremely unpopular with the right-wing: "The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world. The four…

seems to me the only recent threats to freedom of speech have all been from the "liberal" side expressed quite well in colleges with heckler vetoes and codified in law with nebulous hate speech definitions. with regards to worship, same thing, you can have your beliefs but you have to bow to our laws which supercede. we have lost freedom from fear because both politicians and terrorist profit by exploiting it.

Interesting. So one person sees the right wing de-emphasizing the "freedoms from" and another sees the left-wing taking away "freedoms of".

I guess we need a middle wing that attempts to preserve as much liberty as possible for as many people as possible regardless of who feels it is unequal or offensive.

I say this because I feel that the fight for equality is in direct opposition to the fight for liberty.

Re: Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores

#245

Post by throwaway111112 »

Yesterday, I received [1] from a friend. I laughed it off as the usual exaggeration when someone talks about Google and privacy. Today, I read that Google moved one step closer to that story.

[1] https://www.devrant.io/rants/605665/hello-gordons-pizza-no-s...

Re: Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores

#247

Post by zaphods-towel »

Shivetya wrote: post #211
pjc50 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that Roosevelt's famous "four freedoms" included two "freedom of" and two "freedom from". The "freedom from" elements have been de-emphasised lately as they're extremely unpopular with the right-wing: "The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world. The four…

seems to me the only recent threats to freedom of speech have all been from the "liberal" side expressed quite well in colleges with heckler vetoes and codified in law with nebulous hate speech definitions. with regards to worship, same thing, you can have your beliefs but you have to bow to our laws which supercede. we have lost freedom from fear because both politicians and terrorist profit by exploiting it.

We have also lost freedom from fear because of militarization of police, violent suppression of protest, extensive surveillance, harassment and manipulation of journalists, and threatening actions taken by bigots.

Re: Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores

#248

Post by keithpeter »

eternalban wrote: post #167
keithpeter wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps a more subtle thing for them to keep in mind: many people carry out a mix of card/online and cash transactions. Only the card/online transactions will be captured. The Panopticon's record will show an extremely unhealthy and meagre diet for me for instance because I buy fresh fruit/veg at markets - cash only. It strikes me that data censored through transaction modality and then used to make marketing decisio…

The Panopticon central says 'cash is going bye bye sunshine'.

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarte...

Cash will be around for a fair time yet, but you have a point for any form of regular or recurrent expenditure. As the above pdf explains 'hoarding' of notes as a store of value seems strangely popular...

Re: Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores

#249

Post by bingojess »

hedora wrote: post #230
bingojess wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with what you are saying but given the probabilities (I don't see the big 5 having a significant data breach any time soon) it is something I'm willing to trade off or sacrifice so to speak. I guess the ideal scenario would be that all corporation and the government does not store my data, even anonymously. But this is unrealistic and I haven't bothered looking for alternatives that are safer/have more privac…

I emphatically opt out of all of Google's services and tracking. I have done everything I can to avoid having them track me, short of quitting my job (we use google apps at work...). When you (I think, naively) traded your privacy and freedom for their services, you also traded a bit of my privacy and freedom, and that is unacceptable to me. The same can be said about any of the other big surveillance capitalism comp…

I opt out when when it's convenient (ie. located in the settings I don't dig further than that) I deleted by FB.

I value it different and am fully rational in what I have done. Psychological manipulation? You mean ads and recommended youtube videos? If you could elaborate, this would interest me.

With regards to bad actors and overreaching LE, I really haven't felt the negatives to warrant changing my behaviour.

I have no idea what you mean giving up participating in democracy. How does choosing not to be a dissident mean I have given up the right to participate in the democratic process? I'm not American by the way. I'm in a country where I have my vote and I can speak up against my government without repercussion. If I were in an authoritarian one I'd be much more concerned.

Re: Google starts tracking what people buy in physical stores

#250

Post by skummetmaelk »

bingojess wrote: post #249
hedora wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I emphatically opt out of all of Google's services and tracking. I have done everything I can to avoid having them track me, short of quitting my job (we use google apps at work...). When you (I think, naively) traded your privacy and freedom for their services, you also traded a bit of my privacy and freedom, and that is unacceptable to me. The same can be said about any of the other big surveillance capitalism comp…

I opt out when when it's convenient (ie. located in the settings I don't dig further than that) I deleted by FB. I value it different and am fully rational in what I have done. Psychological manipulation? You mean ads and recommended youtube videos? If you could elaborate, this would interest me. With regards to bad actors and overreaching LE, I really haven't felt the negatives to warrant changing my behaviour. I ha…

Political changes can happen very quickly. Countries can go from free democracies to authoritarian dictatorships in 20-30 years. You cannot know what the world, and your country, will look like in 50 years. Being okay with giving companies ammunition against you is the same as making bad decisions like driving without a seatbelt because "I'm a good driver and I will never crash".
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