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Google and Mastercard Cut Ad Deal to Track Retail Sales

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

#111

Post by cromwellian »

There are cryptographic ways to compute a set intersection between two sets A and B held by two different parties without A and B revealing the membership of elements of the set.

If set A is the set of users shown ads for Merchant M, and set B is the set of customers at merchant M who purchased something, then this intersection can tell you what percentage of the ads were shown to people who made a purchase without revealing who made the purchase to A or revealing who was shown an ad to B.

There’s probably a way to do it with differential privacy as well but it might be less efficient.

This is like the fourth time this story has hit the media. Google really needs to publish the full transparent details of their protocol and let the academic community analyze the, if only to avoid misinformation and speculation.

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

#112

Post by 4ad »

Moru wrote: post #67
thaumaturgy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Or do like the germans that remember the old times of big brother watching you. Use cash. When I'm shopping it isn't just the old ladys digging deep and long in their purse for the exact change, almost everyone pays with cash.

How do I pay with cash on amazon.com?

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

#113

Post by electricEmu »

orbitingpluto wrote: post #105
dman wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why ruin a good story with facts?

They did in Canada. (And I've seen articles that say Canadians use cash less often than in the States.)

You've been provided two opportunities to cite those articles.

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

#114

Post by drtillberg »

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.

Maybe a simple NYCE debit card? Apparently they are widely accepted at POS.

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

#115

Post by walrus01 »

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.

If you consider in aggregate all of the government and corporate tracking and surveillance these days, the only way to opt out is to move to an off grid shack in the Montana woods and live a lifestyle like Ted Kaczynsky.

I am about 85% serious here.

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

#116

Post by orbitingpluto »

electricEmu wrote: post #113
orbitingpluto wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did in Canada. (And I've seen articles that say Canadians use cash less often than in the States.)

You've been provided two opportunities to cite those articles.

https://globalnews.ca/news/1249484/safeway-discontinues-club...

"You've been provided two opportunities to cite those articles." That is worded in the most irksome manner. What is wrong with you?

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

#117

Post by donarb »

4ad wrote: post #112
Moru wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or do like the germans that remember the old times of big brother watching you. Use cash. When I'm shopping it isn't just the old ladys digging deep and long in their purse for the exact change, almost everyone pays with cash.

How do I pay with cash on amazon.com?

You can buy Amazon gift cards with cash anywhere like drug and grocery stores.

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

#118

Post by andrepd »

4ad wrote: post #112
Moru wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or do like the germans that remember the old times of big brother watching you. Use cash. When I'm shopping it isn't just the old ladys digging deep and long in their purse for the exact change, almost everyone pays with cash.

How do I pay with cash on amazon.com?

Well don't use amazon dot com then.

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

#119

Post by mrep »

i1856511 wrote: post #94
noelsusman wrote: post #70

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.

A lot of attention in the press is given to Google et. al. about purchase profiling and tracking for ads. But the concept of purchase profiling has existed really since the invention of the credit card. As others have mentioned hedge funds have brokered this data for decades - but for some reason it has not been covered as excruciatingly as it has for tech companies. While I disapprove of the practice overall I would…

It is somewhat ironic that Google is probably more privacy focused and has better security than any other company in the fortune 500 and yet they seem to get some of the most negative criticism here.

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

#120

Post by mulmen »

4ad wrote: post #112
Moru wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or do like the germans that remember the old times of big brother watching you. Use cash. When I'm shopping it isn't just the old ladys digging deep and long in their purse for the exact change, almost everyone pays with cash.

How do I pay with cash on amazon.com?

https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=14583169011

This is the first Google result for “amazon.com pay with cash”.

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