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Slighly off topic, whenever I see rebates (or similar) in the form of gift cards, I always assume the the entity awarding the gift card does so because the use of the card deepens their data profile on you. Or maybe I'm just too paranoid?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Pull money out at an ATM and pay for things with cash I guess. Not great, but it's an option.
Slighly off topic, whenever I see rebates (or similar) in the form of gift cards, I always assume the the entity awarding the gift card does so because the use of the card deepens their data profile on you. Or maybe I'm just too paranoid?
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.
Your only option is to refuse cards altogether because they've all been selling anonymized data on you for years. The big hedge funds pay big dollars for direct lines of data from the credit card companies.
There needs to be much more coverage of this in the contemporary press as it is applied to credit card companies, agnostic of tech co.'s making it a joint venture.
I believe credit card co.'s gave this process momentum early on and tech co.'s are just taking it and running with it.
The same can be said for Google location tracking vs. Verizon's straight-up selling that data as an asset.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"anonymized" 100% deserves/needs scare quotes around that. I mean just look at the snake-oil bullshit wording Google are using to describe what they do here: "Before we launched this beta product last year, we built a new, double-blind encryption technology that prevents both Google and our partners from viewing our respective users’ personally identifiable information,” I mean, I guess there are proper cryptographic…
Out of all the other possible parties that could have attempted this? Yup, I'd say I trust them the most.
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.
The only choice is to lobby your government officials to create laws preventing this sort of data collection. End-users have zero power anymore except by collective action in the form of government regulations.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"anonymized" 100% deserves/needs scare quotes around that. I mean just look at the snake-oil bullshit wording Google are using to describe what they do here: "Before we launched this beta product last year, we built a new, double-blind encryption technology that prevents both Google and our partners from viewing our respective users’ personally identifiable information,” I mean, I guess there are proper cryptographic…
Out of all the other possible parties that could have attempted this? Yup, I'd say I trust them the most.
I _strongly_ doubt they have the corporate will or motivation to actually put it into production. I'd go so far as to say "getting it right" is antithetical to their (enormously profitable and deeply entrenched) business model.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your only option is to refuse cards altogether because they've all been selling anonymized data on you for years. The big hedge funds pay big dollars for direct lines of data from the credit card companies.
"anonymized" 100% deserves/needs scare quotes around that. I mean just look at the snake-oil bullshit wording Google are using to describe what they do here: "Before we launched this beta product last year, we built a new, double-blind encryption technology that prevents both Google and our partners from viewing our respective users’ personally identifiable information,” I mean, I guess there are proper cryptographic…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your only option is to refuse cards altogether because they've all been selling anonymized data on you for years. The big hedge funds pay big dollars for direct lines of data from the credit card companies.
"anonymized" 100% deserves/needs scare quotes around that. I mean just look at the snake-oil bullshit wording Google are using to describe what they do here: "Before we launched this beta product last year, we built a new, double-blind encryption technology that prevents both Google and our partners from viewing our respective users’ personally identifiable information,” I mean, I guess there are proper cryptographic…