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Google and Mastercard Cut Ad Deal to Track Retail Sales

bloomberg.com

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Re: Google and Mastercard Cut Ad Deal to Track Retail Sales

#31

Post by cm2187 »

colechristensen wrote: post #20
ilove_banh_mi wrote: post #2

Do I have a choice, other than cancelling all of my MasterCard cards? This business of tracking and profiling is increasingly evil. If I dystopically discovered that someone has been following me around all the time, writing down everything I look at or do or purchase, in public and at home, I could not tolerate it.

You never had a choice. Paying with plastic always meant that you were tracked and that data sold. If you don't like it, use cash.

Banking data has strong regulatory protection. I am surprised payment data hasn't.

Re: Google and Mastercard Cut Ad Deal to Track Retail Sales

#33

Post by m1573rp34130dy »

ilove_banh_mi wrote: post #2

Do I have a choice, other than cancelling all of my MasterCard cards? This business of tracking and profiling is increasingly evil. If I dystopically discovered that someone has been following me around all the time, writing down everything I look at or do or purchase, in public and at home, I could not tolerate it.

buy something your friends need at a place you rarely shop and get cash back...then go do your cash on hand shopping...

Re: Google and Mastercard Cut Ad Deal to Track Retail Sales

#34

Post by nostromo »

ilove_banh_mi wrote: post #29
nostromo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could move to Apple and use Apple Pay Cash to buy purchases you'd rather not be tracked and sold to Google (and a million other companies).

[correction: Apple Pay Cash should indeed be a workable shield.] Using Apple Pay [not the "Cash" feature] only hides your details from the retailer, not from the credit card company nor evidently from Google.

I said Apple Pay Cash, and yes, it does.

https://applepaycash.greendot.com/privacy/

Re: Google and Mastercard Cut Ad Deal to Track Retail Sales

#35

Post by foolrush »

pointillistic wrote: post #6
ilove_banh_mi wrote: post #2

Do I have a choice, other than cancelling all of my MasterCard cards? This business of tracking and profiling is increasingly evil. If I dystopically discovered that someone has been following me around all the time, writing down everything I look at or do or purchase, in public and at home, I could not tolerate it.

How do you unGoogle? They have my phone, my email. Amazon now follows my grocery shopping at Whole Foods. I doubt Visa and Amex are far behind, it's free money for them so there is no point in canning Master. What a disaster! Ad supported Internet is the root of the problem.

Unfettered, profit-at-all-costs is the problem. Paying for something brings no shred of chance that your data isn't being harvested. Zero.

Most people pay for credit cards by way of yearly fees, they track you. Purchase music? Your music is cross referenced in the name of discoverability. Hardware? Same.

Some of those things might be helpful in some contexts, and in others not. That fuzzy line is the discourse.

With all of that said, to cite the locus of all evil as “ad supported” as the problem is a logical fault line.

Re: Google and Mastercard Cut Ad Deal to Track Retail Sales

#36

Post by tdb7893 »

ilove_banh_mi wrote: post #2

Do I have a choice, other than cancelling all of my MasterCard cards? This business of tracking and profiling is increasingly evil. If I dystopically discovered that someone has been following me around all the time, writing down everything I look at or do or purchase, in public and at home, I could not tolerate it.

I feel like as consumers we've lost this battle. If it's profitable the other companies will do it, too. I'm hoping that as consumers keep getting more screwed we can get some regulation to give us at least a little control and visibility into our data.

Re: Google and Mastercard Cut Ad Deal to Track Retail Sales

#37

Post by unethical_ban »

mtmail wrote: post #3
ilove_banh_mi wrote: post #2

Do I have a choice, other than cancelling all of my MasterCard cards? This business of tracking and profiling is increasingly evil. If I dystopically discovered that someone has been following me around all the time, writing down everything I look at or do or purchase, in public and at home, I could not tolerate it.

From the article "The company said people can opt out of ad tracking using Google’s “Web and App Activity” online console. Inside Google, multiple people raised objections that the service did not have a more obvious way for cardholders to opt out of the tracking, one of the people said."

https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols by the way.

Re: Google and Mastercard Cut Ad Deal to Track Retail Sales

#38

Post by draw_down »

ggm wrote: post #24

They've been doing variations of spend track as a $value to goods and services for years (I mean the banks) so.. I don't get it: whats significantly different this time, compared to the spend tracking they've done as business-intelligence for the last 20 years? They sell it to the highest targetted bidder. If you are buying BMW accessories for an old model car, without searching online, dont be surprised if you get a…

I’ve grown very weary of HN comments that just say “what’s new about this?” Things can be worth discussing after the exact moment they become known to the world

Re: Google and Mastercard Cut Ad Deal to Track Retail Sales

#39

Post by remir »

pointillistic wrote: post #6
ilove_banh_mi wrote: post #2

Do I have a choice, other than cancelling all of my MasterCard cards? This business of tracking and profiling is increasingly evil. If I dystopically discovered that someone has been following me around all the time, writing down everything I look at or do or purchase, in public and at home, I could not tolerate it.

How do you unGoogle? They have my phone, my email. Amazon now follows my grocery shopping at Whole Foods. I doubt Visa and Amex are far behind, it's free money for them so there is no point in canning Master. What a disaster! Ad supported Internet is the root of the problem.

For email, there's Fastmail, which is great and the web UI is clean, simple and fast. If your phone is supported, you can install LineageOS on it without any Google apps.

Re: Google and Mastercard Cut Ad Deal to Track Retail Sales

#40

Post by thaumaturgy »

ilove_banh_mi wrote: post #4
mtmail wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article "The company said people can opt out of ad tracking using Google’s “Web and App Activity” online console. Inside Google, multiple people raised objections that the service did not have a more obvious way for cardholders to opt out of the tracking, one of the people said."

I did read the article. That's discovering that someone is stalking you, until and unless you tell them you'd rather "opt out" even though you never "opted in" the evil stalking. Meanwhile, all shops and businesses you get near to or purchase from are calling the stalker to let him know what you're doing -- how do you "opt out" of these?

Buy less stuff.

It maybe isn't an ideal solution, but it has a lot of upsides. Advertisers (and ad middlemen like Google) bet that they can sell more stuff by drilling deeper and deeper into people's lives.

But the bottom falls out of all that when people decide to opt out of large parts of the commercial ecosystem.

Track your finances instead, the same way you would with a fitness app, and get that dopamine hit from seeing your savings increase. Feel secure in the knowledge that when the next major economic slump hits -- when, not if -- you'll be able to easily ride it out, maybe even enjoy a nice vacation at discounted rates.

The massive growth of ad blockers was an immune response to the excesses of advertisers on the web. Commercial minimalism is the only way to respond to all this crap happening everywhere else.

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