I see ads on facebook related to purchases I make with a specific credit card. I have no indication which party is supplying this info to whom and how they made the connection to my facebook account.
Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint
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Re: Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint
#72Privacy centric Cryptocurrencies is the solution rearing it's head. Zcash. Btc.
Re: Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint
#73Unfortunately, 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…
Maybe cash should be replaced by zcash.
Re: Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
You can use geography, I assume this is meant to measure ROAS.
I've worked on a similar problem, and some very large retailers we worked with wanted to measure ROAS. They turned off all adspend in a certain large metropolitan area, while we turned on in that area. Measuring the sales lift/drop, gave an idea of the platform's effectiveness.
Any other demographic data point could also be used, not just geo. You don't necessarily need to link people directly.
Re: Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish they'd lobby this harder overseas. I moved to Europe 10 months ago and one of my biggest qualms with seemingly almost every single vendor here is that they only take cash and in the rare cases they also take card, they only take some cards (sometimes Visa, sometimes Maestro, sometimes MasterCard, etc). I would give up my purchasing history to everyone in the world if it meant I could use a single card to actua…
Europe? You need to be more specific than that. I find it hard to believe what you say and I live in eastern europe (Romania). I don't have any problem paying with cards here. It's an actual european law that asks the merchants to accept credit cards.
Had an incredible opportunity to do a road trip through Romania (including way off beaten path) with some elders that escaped during communism. Both my visa and sometimes American express worked in many areas albeit I prefer to use cash when I can and find myself trying to use cash more often every day.
Re: Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I've made very clear when i speak for Google and when I don't, and i pretty much never do (except on some licensing issues). If you want official statements from me, go elsewhere. If you want HN to be a place of real discussion and debate, it's stupid to try to tie people to their companies. I think very different from my company on quite a lot of issues, and i happily point that at too. To your point, however, I did…
I think the disclaimer would have been appropriate here just for transparency sake. As an employee and likely a shareholder, presumably people will be worried you have an ulterior motive in trying to get people to think of Google in a positive light.
I don't think it's so much about thing people to their companies but more about being transparent so people can form their own opinions. If people just accuse you of hiding that information it details the conversation anyway.
Just my opinion. I also work for Google and am pretty sure they also recommend being transparent when commenting on things related to the company although I admit it's been a while since I read the guidelines.
Re: Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to this article [0], WeChat and Alipay will surpass Visa and Mastercard in total global transactions per day in the coming year. If a payment app really takes off in the Western world, wouldn't that be a very big risk for Visa and Mastercard? [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/16/business/china-cash-smart...
Only if the payment app ties directly to a bank account, rather than a card. I don't see any movement in that direction in the US, so the card networks would still be getting their cut.
I foresee a Wallmart/Amazon race between banks and online wallets in the future (each trying to become the other first). Paypal nearly got there a while back. They were actually paying more interest on your Paypal balance than banks were paying on your savings, since they didn't need all the infrastructure involved in being a bank. Not sure what happened to kill that.
Re: Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've made very clear when i speak for Google and when I don't, and i pretty much never do (except on some licensing issues). If you want official statements from me, go elsewhere. If you want HN to be a place of real discussion and debate, it's stupid to try to tie people to their companies. I think very different from my company on quite a lot of issues, and i happily point that at too. To your point, however, I did…
I think the disclaimer would have been appropriate here just for transparency sake. As an employee and likely a shareholder, presumably people will be worried you have an ulterior motive in trying to get people to think of Google in a positive light. I don't think it's so much about thing people to their companies but more about being transparent so people can form their own opinions. If people just accuse you of hid…
"I think the disclaimer would have been appropriate here just for transparency sake."
I'm very strongly against disclaimers for my personal opinions on random discussion forums , and will continue not to do so right up until i'm forced to (at which point, i'll probably just stop contributing). When I write or post articles in a public news setting or something, or get paid to write them, i'll be happy to.
When i'm just writing crap on HN, sorry, but no.
"presumably people will be worried you have an ulterior motive in trying to get people to think of Google in a positive light."
Which, again, should and does contribute literally nothing to a real discussion, much in the same way knowing a guy owns a 50 million dollar house does not make their opinions or viewpoints, or arguments, less valid on NIMBYism. Engage on the merits.
"but more about being transparent so people can form their own opinions".
People should not form opinions based on who other people work for, when they aren't speaking for their companies. This is precisely a type of bias we should be seeking to prevent. It adds no value to an intellectual discussion. It just gives a mechanism for smug self satisfaction by saying "hey, i don't have to care if he has a good point, he works for X so i can just pretend it's not a real argument"
"I also work for Google and am pretty sure they also recommend being transparent when commenting on things related to the company although I admit it's been a while since I read the guidelines.'
I'm very very very familiar with the guidelines google issues.
Re: Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Homomorphic encryption to do set intersection. With sufficiently large sets, you don't need to do any sort of collection at the individual level.
Re: Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint
#80Try as I might, I just can't be bothered to care if someone wants to know what I've been buying so they can show me advertisements relevant to my interests. But I'm weird, I don't think advertising is inherently evil or annoying.
Something like this should be opt-in for people like you. By default our private spending information should not be shared with 3rd parties.