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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

#211

Post by jvannistelrooy »

rrdelaney wrote: post #143
ehnto wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be extremely ethical about your factory farm but it's still a factory farm. Google is in the business of utilising your data in the interest of advertising. No matter how you sugar coat it, the core of the business is tracking people and exploiting that data. Are they doing their best to be careful and ethical? It sure seems like it, but that doesn't solve the issue. The free services they and many tech compa…

Google is not in the business of selling your data. Google does not sell your data. It’s pretty clear in their privacy policy: https://privacy.google.com/how-ads-work.html Disclaimer: I work at Google.

It's a shame you're getting downvoted. There's nothing wrong with your comment, and it adds a useful argument to the discussion that's going on here.

I can only applaud Google employees who want to have a meaningful discussion here, and even disclose that they're working at Google.

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

#212

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F »

leereeves wrote: post #126
Skunkleton wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The privacy aspects are important, but it is also worth considering the impact this sort of stuff has on society. We like to think of ourselves as semi-immune to advertisement (and manipulation), but we really aren't. The 2016 presidential election proved that. Putting more and more data into the hands of Google and others just gives them more power over the public at large. Are we OK with that? Is the discussion eve…

I'd say the 2016 election proved how hard we are to manipulate. Hillary lost despite spending more and having nearly the entire media (with only a few exceptions like Fox) on her side.

Really? Have you ever heard of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica?

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

#213

Post by icebraining »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #174
tjr225 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not using google is actually a piece of cake. Ther are reasonable competitors for nearly all of their services, except maybe translate and maps. Though I have been looking at OSM a lot lately. I, personally, use an DuckDuckGo, an iPhone and Apple mail. Amazon isn't an issue really- just buy whatever you were going to get on amazon somewhere else - it's pretty rare that I find a noticeable price difference (unless we'…

> Not using google is actually a piece of cake not using google is easy, not losing data for 15+ years and counting is significantly harder. even Apple dropped my photos due term of service change, I had to scramble gigabites off internet into disks and now my collection is an unindexed mess.

To be fair to Google, they (mostly) make it fairly easy to move out; exporting your Photos with Takeout returns a nice archive where each image is accompanied by a JSON file with metadata. It's not any standard format, as far as I can tell, but should be easy enough to massage into whatever you want.

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

#214

Post by icebraining »

auslander wrote: post #139
pointillistic wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is vital to unGoogle, to protect your data. Totally possible. 1. Switch everything to Apple, hardware company. iPhone, Mac OS 2. Use myname@icloud.com email, create few email aliases. Forward your gmail to it, and finally delete gmail accounts. 3. Don't use any of Googles software, like Chrome. Install adbocker extention/app and use Private Browsing windows by default 4. Buy a VPN subscription and set up your phon…

What makes you think your VPN company isn't selling your net usage data to Google?

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

#215

Post by rapnie »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #201
rapnie wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me wonder if there is a business model for 'anonymous proxy' companies, where you do the shopping at your favourite online webshops, but handle actual ordering, payment and final delivery to your home via the proxy company, who guarantee your privacy for a small additional fee, or subscription charge. Maybe this exists already. The difficulty would be in offering a good usability (how do you get that Amazo…

That business would attract all the bad actors looking to use stolen credit cards and then get banned by the merchant processors for too many chargebacks. And no one can guarantee your privacy, unless they're deleting data very quickly, but the merchant processors wouldn't like that nor would the government.

It would have the same due-dilligence requirements as any webshop and validate your payment method (which could be any method, like iDeal, and even credit card, where the payment processor doesn't get to see the exact order details, but a 'proxied order').

You are right about the privacy guarantee, but there is the issue of trust in any business transaction. Why am I using ProtonMail/VPN? Because they have privacy + security as their primary USP and it is reflected in their business (transparency, privacy policies, compliance, certification, etc.). They work hard to earn and keep my trust, and I pay them to do just that.

I am no expert but probably you can let your company be audited by some trusted party on adherence to privacy promises and prove that you comply.

Having that they can keep my data in storage for as long my government requires by law.

--

Edit: Because this is deeply nested and tangential to the topic I created a separate Ask HN on this idea: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17884474

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

#216

Post by auslander »

icebraining wrote: post #214
auslander wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is vital to unGoogle, to protect your data. Totally possible. 1. Switch everything to Apple, hardware company. iPhone, Mac OS 2. Use myname@icloud.com email, create few email aliases. Forward your gmail to it, and finally delete gmail accounts. 3. Don't use any of Googles software, like Chrome. Install adbocker extention/app and use Private Browsing windows by default 4. Buy a VPN subscription and set up your phon…

What makes you think your VPN company isn't selling your net usage data to Google?

I carefully selected it :) Even if it does, there are other benefits:

- ISP has no clue what you do

- Your IP is hidden, major feature for fingerprinting you by websites, trackers and Google.

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

#217

Post by rapnie »

icebraining wrote: post #202
rapnie wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me wonder if there is a business model for 'anonymous proxy' companies, where you do the shopping at your favourite online webshops, but handle actual ordering, payment and final delivery to your home via the proxy company, who guarantee your privacy for a small additional fee, or subscription charge. Maybe this exists already. The difficulty would be in offering a good usability (how do you get that Amazo…

Wouldn't that company have all your information? What would make me trust them? Seems more dangerous than buying directly from multiple retailers, for example.

See my response to lotsofpulp.

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

#218

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

byte1918 wrote: post #179
tokyodude wrote: post #177

Is there are opportunity for a non-tracked credit card? Would it even be possible? I don't mean anonymous, I just mean "We promise not to share your data period, not even anonymized" but we still have your name and address and phone number on your account. But even if some company offered that all the retailers could still share their data with some aggregator which would effective work around your privacy oriented c…

I wouldn't mind paying a larger monthly/yearly fee if this was a thing.

AMEX?

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

#219

Post by basicplus2 »

HohPum1l wrote: post #207
basicplus2 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And removing the oportunity for the retailer to collect info on who shops in their stores...

An "opportunity" they never had with cash in the first place.

Yes but they do have the opportunity when customers pay with their credit card directly..

An untapped opportunity perhaps

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

#220

Post by Aaargh20318 »

ginko wrote: post #199
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about linking real-world credit-card payments to your online identity. People in Europe don't use credit cards offline.

>People in Europe don't use credit cards offline. That's a huge over-generalization. It's true that cash is king in Germany for instance, but Scandinavians pay almost exclusively by card.

> It's true that cash is king in Germany for instance,

Sure, Germany is a bit behind the times when it comes to paying with plastic.

> but Scandinavians pay almost exclusively by card

Same goes for the Netherlands where I live, but we don't pay by credit card, we pay by debit card.

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