Google and Mastercard Cut Ad Deal to Track Retail Sales • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by qubax » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 1:22 PM UTC

noelsusman wrote: post #70

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.

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.

> The big hedge funds pay big dollars for direct lines of data from the credit card companies.

Not just hedge funds. All finance institutions buy ( "share" ) data from and with each other. Even if you "opt out" ( we should be defaulted to opt-in rather than having to opt out but that's another discussion ), banks have a sneaky trick of slightly changing your ToS and giving you 30 days to "opt out" again. It's one of the reasons why every year, people get "new terms" in the mail. If you look closely, you'll see a slip of paper in the pile of papers about "privacy" rights and saying you have 30 days or so to let your bank know you don't want them to "share" your data.

Also, keep in mind that anonymized data is anonymous in a local sense, not a global sense. Even if PII is removed from one data vender, you can link anonymized data from a variety of data venders to "unanonymize" you. If you have one set of PII ( say like your employer ), then it's really effortless to link you with the anonymized data.

If you have search history from google, data dump from facebook and CC data, then one could pretty much peer into most people's homes and lives without much problem. You could know people better than their spouses do and in many instances, better than they do themselves.

The difference between a slave or serf and a free man isn't paid labor ( as even slaves were paid for their labor ), but the right to prevent intrusion into their lives. A free man had privacy. Slaves had no right to privacy. We are moving into a world with little to no privacy. Well not all of us. The wealthy are moving into a world of greater privacy.

Buying up islands. Highly walled and heavily guarded compounds. Opaque offshore wealth centers.

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

#252

Post by mikekchar » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 1:54 PM UTC

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…

There are pre-paid "credit" cards in Japan (and I imagine other places as well). You can even get a Visa card. While they do have a special number range, you can usually use them in the same place you can use any other card. I can go down the convenience store and purchase one and then use the card online. The most that they can track me is to find the time and location of the convenience store I bought it at (as long as I pay cash).

The only problem is that the total you can spend: ~$50 on the ones I've found, so not terribly useful. But it's at least proof of concept that they could do it if they wanted to.

Japan is mostly (for the moment, anyway) a cash based society, so these kinds of things work. Payment cards are becoming more and more popular, where you load money on to them and then you can use them in stores. Most of them don't require that you register with them, but of course they all recommend it (and you can't take money off of a card without it being registered, presumably to reduce theft of the cards).

I quite like the system, since I like privacy. Also much better than a debit card since I don't have to give access to my primary bank account to have a convenient payment system.

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

#253

Post by Tharkun » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #193

Tharkun wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think MC and Google aren't doing the same thing in Europe?

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.

What? Of course we do. If anything, Europeans are less likely to use credit cards online (though that is slowly changing), instead opting for bank transfers or online debit cards.

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

#254

Post by Tharkun » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 2:01 PM UTC

ionised wrote: post #187

Tharkun wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think MC and Google aren't doing the same thing in Europe?

There are laws against them doing this in Europe.

Are you referring to GDPR? As far as I can tell, the data is allegedly anonymous, so not subject to GDPR. Even if it weren't, Google doesn't exactly have a good track record of respecting privacy or privacy related laws. They've been known to "accidentally" harvest wifi traffic in bulk. They drive spy cars around taking pictures or everything and everyone.

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

#255

Post by ardy42 » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 2:07 PM UTC

boling11 wrote: post #52

earenndil wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use ios or lineageos. You can use an email such as protonmail (although I personally find them just a touch shady, they're no doubt miles better than gmail) or host your own. Don't shop at whole foods. Pay with cash.

Just out of curiosity, what feels shady about ProtonMail?

I believe a competitor of theirs has been actively trying to spread distrust of them on HN. I don't remember the details well, but I think they allege that ProtonVPN and ProtonMail aren't independent from each other when they claim they are.

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

#256

Post by nojvek » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 2:11 PM UTC

mattkevan wrote: post #210

fwn wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parents point is valid in so far as that selling really is the wrong term for it. If Google sold the data, someone else would have it. That would not only be awful from a privacy perspective, it would be desasterous for business. It's primarily a case for precise language and not something to ridicule.

They don't sell our data, they rent us out to the highest bidder. More data means they can match us to clients better and charge a higher price for us.

This captures Google’s and FB’s business model perfectly.

Not matter how you sugarcoat it, if you work for Google or FB or any other ad blasting company, you help further the model of selling data of people’s private lives to the highest bidder and ad spam them throughout the internet for months.

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

#257

Post by nojvek » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 2:15 PM UTC

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #200

fwn wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parents point is valid in so far as that selling really is the wrong term for it. If Google sold the data, someone else would have it. That would not only be awful from a privacy perspective, it would be desasterous for business. It's primarily a case for precise language and not something to ridicule.

Like you mention one of the most obvious reasons that Google does not sell user information is because it would not make good business sense. These immense profiles they're building on everybody are part of their 'secret sauce' and simply selling those would not be good for business. When they're choosing to not engage in behavior that no company in their shoes would engage in, it's hardly praise worthy and I think i…

Don’t be evil ship sailed a long time ago. They’ve demonstrated over and over again that their stock price matters more than privacy of their users.

The way I see it, it’s a race to trillion dollar mark for AMZN, GOOG and MSFT now.

I have little expectations that they’ll do much to reverse their ad blasting and deep tracking trends.

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

#258

Post by protonmail » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 2:17 PM UTC

ardy42 wrote: post #255

boling11 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity, what feels shady about ProtonMail?

I believe a competitor of theirs has been actively trying to spread distrust of them on HN. I don't remember the details well, but I think they allege that ProtonVPN and ProtonMail aren't independent from each other when they claim they are.

There is a smear campaign going on, but not about precisely this. The smear campaign is that since ProtonVPN is free, it must be doing something nefarious.

ProtonMail and ProtonVPN are legally separate, but they are both part of the Proton family of projects which originated from CERN.

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

#259

Post by village-idiot » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 2:24 PM UTC

leereeves wrote: post #247

village-idiot wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 manipulate…

I agree 100% on the first point.

On the original question: evidence seems to say yes.

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

#260

Post by leereeves » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 2:28 PM UTC

village-idiot wrote: post #259

leereeves wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 manipulate…

I agree 100% on the first point. On the original question: evidence seems to say yes.

How can you agree that "the press may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think" and at the same time think we're easily manipulated?