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Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint

#31

Post by whytaka »

the_common_man wrote: post #19

> Google called its advertising approach "common" Tragedy of the commons. At this point in time, any and all forms of data collection have become common. When I visit a website, I expect them to collect everything about me - my IP, my mouse movements, what I clicked, how long I took to click it. Just a matter of time, that they start tracking audio and visual cues as well. It's unthinkable today but we will get there…

I wonder if you're using the term as a poetic device, but as far as I know that's not what Tragedy of the Commons means.

Commons are properties without private owners. The tragedy is that because no one individual owns it, the people that use it use it without care to its maintenance believing that it is not their responsibility.

Re: Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint

#32

Post by ocdtrekkie »

cromwellian wrote: post #20
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, first and foremost, it bothers me that this data can be sold at all in a user-identifiable way. (Presumably for Google to be able to link it to accounts, name and address are included in the data.) Perhaps this offers the opportunity for a product, in the short term: Is anyone offering credit cards which promise not to sell your purchase history? I'd be game for that.

It's actually not given to Google in a user identifiable way. I am not privy to the details, but an overview was presented at a crypto conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee7oRsDnNNc&t=10m1s It looks to me like a form of homomorphic encryption where both the aggregate consumer transactions (people bought X at merchant M), and the aggregate Google ad information (people saw ad for X at merchant M) are encrypte…

My question is... how is that supposed to work? How do they turn "person A's credit card account" and "person A's Google account" into something comparable. To say "X customers saw the ad and then purchased it", you've gotta be able to be able to confirm that the same person is on both sides of the dataset, which is a pretty hard problem even without it allegedly not sharing the info on one side with Google.

I guess this complaint from this article is asking the FTC to get more information on this process, or get Google to explain how it works, or something.

Upvote for the explanation.

Re: Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint

#33

Post by gbacon »

slobotron wrote: post #16
Spivak wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you want it to be sold to your insurance company? We see that you're a regular coffee drinker which is correlated with increased risk of heart problems -- here's a rate increase.

In general, why should someone's higher risk lifestyle be subsidized by other insurance customers?

This was the insight behind the founding of GEICO, originally the Government Employees Insurance Company. The Goodwins recognized that government employees are more risk averse than the average bear. By writing policies to civil servants only, they could profitably charge lower premiums.

Geico began offering policies to the general public in 1974, so this is historical trivia now.

Re: Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint

#34

Post by likpok »

trendia wrote: post #14
DannyBee wrote: post #4

Unfortunately, credit card companies/banks/etc have been selling purchasing histories, to pretty much all comers, for years. It'd be really nice if we could stop that instead of caring about the particular people they sell it to. IE It's not "better" when they sell it to someone who isn't Google, and I honestly could't give a crap about the complaint, which mostly deals with antitrust.

Visa is working to prevent people from using cash in stores [0]. Currently, they are merely giving merchants an incentive to change, but in the future they may use their immense lobbying power to get preferential legislation enacted. Once cash is gone: 1. your purchases will be available to any company willing to pay for it, and 2. Visa will get a de facto "tax" on all transactions (through 1-2% merchant fees) [0] ht…

NB that handling cash isn't free either. You have to pay someone to count it, secure it, and steal it (you are arguably not intentionally paying people to steal cash, but shrinkage is certainly a cost of doing business in cash).

I've seen estimates that the cost of handling cash is actually higher than the interchange fees that Visa charges. This generally counts things like armored truck services, time spent counting cash (probably multiple times), time spent delivering cash, dealing with registers, etc.

Re: Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint

#35

Post by Theodores »

cbhl wrote: post #30
Theodores wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how do we fix this? In the days when we had interest rates it was possible to make money on transactions by taking the money one day and paying the invoice on the next day. Overnight the money would earn interest. This would be profit to cover the transaction. So a bank could make money moving cheques around for people, taking two weeks to clear back in the days when everything was manual. So with electronic payme…

AFAICT, interest rates are too low (near zero) for banks to make a profit on interest margins alone. You could have a non-profit do the interchange, like the Interac network in Canada, but that would be difficult to coordinate without consolidating all the banks. (Canada has, like, only half a dozen.)

Actually this is solved in the eurozone with that payment method, name forgotten... It is a fundamental bit of what the Euro is about being able to transfer money without the fees.

Re: Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint

#36

Post by cbr »

the_common_man wrote: post #19

> Google called its advertising approach "common" Tragedy of the commons. At this point in time, any and all forms of data collection have become common. When I visit a website, I expect them to collect everything about me - my IP, my mouse movements, what I clicked, how long I took to click it. Just a matter of time, that they start tracking audio and visual cues as well. It's unthinkable today but we will get there…

    start tracking audio and visual cues as well
Do you mean microphone and camera, or something else?

(If you do mean mic/camera, sites can't access those without prompting the browser to show a permissions dialog and you clicking "ok".)

Re: Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint

#37

Post by vertex-four »

CivilianZero wrote: post #23
QAPereo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or potentially worse, if they're compromised/hacked in some way and that data simply enters the wild ecosystem.

I still can't see why I should care if some stranger has my purchase history. I suppose some people might feel weird letting strangers or anyone know what they buy, but that's an argument for the ability to opt-out, not for filing a complaint with an agency or starting a lawsuit.

There's plenty of people who get up to things that would result in severe professional damage if it became public knowledge - I know a handful of teachers who are into BDSM in their private lives who are eternally terrified of their employers or a journalist catching wind. "Some stranger" isn't necessarily the issue, it's someone who has the ability to harm you that's the issue.

Re: Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint

#38

Post by jackpirate »

Spivak wrote: post #17
Eridrus wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we'll get universal healthcare at some point and people will stop rolling out this tired argument.

Okay, how would you like your purchase histories to be used to determine your wealth and companies charge you more for goods and services because they know you can afford to. "I'm sorry sir, our system says your wealth rating is 600, our discounts only apply to people with 400 or lower."

This sounds amazing to me :)

Re: Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint

#39

Post by jgalt212 »

> To do this, Google said it had obtained access to the credit and debit card records of 70 percent of U.S. consumers.

After reading the initial article in May, I called American Express and they swore up and own they don't sell my purchased data. I don't see how you get above 70% without data from American Express.

So who's lying?

Re: Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint

#40

Post by ocdtrekkie »

belltaco wrote: post #22
DannyBee wrote: post #4

Unfortunately, credit card companies/banks/etc have been selling purchasing histories, to pretty much all comers, for years. It'd be really nice if we could stop that instead of caring about the particular people they sell it to. IE It's not "better" when they sell it to someone who isn't Google, and I honestly could't give a crap about the complaint, which mostly deals with antitrust.

It would be nice if commenters like you added a disclaimer that you work for Google in comments that hand wave away Google's privacy issues.

Eventually you just get the gist for who around here works at Google. ;) cromwellian, who responded to one of my comments here, is also a Googler.

Arguably, DannyBee is correct that the real issue is that credit card companies are allowed to sell this data at all. But perhaps the danger of this practice is especially highlighted by the fact that Google is now one of the buyers.

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