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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

#241

Post by abcd_f »

Rafuino wrote: post #161
eitally wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, the Ads org is about 8000 employees (not counting sales), out of 80000 total at Google. Cloud is about 25000 (of which about 4000 are sales and supporting GTM functions). There's MUCH more going on at Google than ads... and that doesn't count the enormous teams working on things like Android, Chrome, Maps, and Youtube.

Uhh... ultimately Android, Chrome, Maps, and Youtube are all about siphoning more data on you and delivering more ads

Let's not forget GA, Fonts, DNS and CDN services.

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

#242

Post by tinus_hn »

derekp7 wrote: post #131
i1856511 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The reason tech companies get the spotlight is because there are times when the tracking is so much in your face. For example, if I look up specs on a pair of Bose headphones, I get plastered with ads for Bose for the next couple months (unless I flush my cookies, and/or browse anonymously or use an ad blocker). Yes, I know what is going on behind the scenes, but it still feels like stalking.

Such a useful idea as well, ads for the product you just bought and only need one of..

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

#243

Post by village-idiot »

leereeves wrote: post #134
village-idiot wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to say that the media was on her side when they gave billions worth of free coverage to Trump. They also gave her email scandals equal weighting compared to Trump admitting to sexual assault and directly asking a foreign government to hack his opponent on live television.

That was negative coverage of Trump. Perhaps what 2016 proved is that there really is no such thing as bad publicity.

They not only covered his rallies without commentary, they would regularly post up hours of video waiting for the rally to start.

Make no mistake, the media recognized very quickly that Trump drew viewers. There’s a damn good reason why CNN is posting record profits.

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

#244

Post by fosco »

bigiain wrote: post #83
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.

"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…

having sat during conversations at a large credit card company it turns out 4 to 5 transactions are all that is needed to identify a person.

meta data like where you made purchases when you made purchases and how much you spent and maybe a few other details are all you need 4 or 5 times to de-anonymize

full disclosure... I have 3 credit cards from this company....at this point I cannot imagine writing checks and carrying cash for daily use... I am not sure this battle can be won at this point.

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

#245

Post by sametmax »

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.

Indeed, they don't sell your data. They give it for free through deals such as PRISM.

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

#247

Post by leereeves »

village-idiot wrote: post #243
leereeves wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was negative coverage of Trump. Perhaps what 2016 proved is that there really is no such thing as bad publicity.

They not only covered his rallies without commentary, they would regularly post up hours of video waiting for the rally to start . Make no mistake, the media recognized very quickly that Trump drew viewers. There’s a damn good reason why CNN is posting record profits.

As Bernard Cohen reportedly said, the press may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.

Seems to be true in this case. They covered Trump, which made him the person people think about.

They told people to hate Trump. The electorate didn't listen.

Back to the original question, does that mean we're easily manipulated?

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

#248

Post by mortehu »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #220
ginko wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

To clarify, in US even debit cards are primarily Visa or Mastercard, whereas in Europe they're not. E.g. Norway uses BankAxept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BankAxept

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

#249

Post by GuB-42 »

Skunkleton wrote: post #59
mvpu wrote: post #49

The key here is "double-blind encryption" - assuming they got that right, neither can see exactly what I am buying, so I'm good. Bigger point: I'd be ok with any company tracking my activities _as long as_ one of two conditions are met: a) it benefits me (and me only), or b) it benefits them _but_ they cannot identify me.

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 think it is obvious we are not immune to advertisement, that's why advertisement exists in the first place.

For the election, politics is 100% advertisement. Candidates have no legal obligation to keep their promises (and that's a good thing). An election won by something that isn't advertisement is not democratic.

Now for the 2016 presidential election specifically, the fact that Trump won despite having most of the Silicon Valley and a major part of the online world against him shows that "Google and others" are not that powerful compared to the traditional players.

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

#250

Post by 3pt14159 »

spydum wrote: post #89
3pt14159 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cash is tracked by the banks. It's usually pretty easy too, especially with things like coffee shops that take a lot of 20s and give a lot of 5s. Most people take out 20s, so it's pretty easy to know who was likely at some place at some day or week.

not even remotely the same league.. I've never once heard of cash analytics for spend habits the same I have seen for cardholder/loyalty programs.

It's tracked to the person and has been for decades. It's used to fight crime, not to help advertisers.
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