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Credit cards have a privacy problem

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem

#151

Post by mehrdadn »

ceejayoz wrote: post #149
mehrdadn wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ohh, sorry, you're talking about Mint -- somehow I confused it with Credit Karma. Yes, they have transaction history and all that from across cards. I agree, it should be pretty valuable for Intuit. What indicates to you that it's not (or not as much as you expect)?

> What indicates to you that it's not (or not as much as you expect)? Intuit's a public company, making both their revenue and the number of Mint users publicly available. They're not making anywhere near what they'd need to make off their extensive data holdings to make your theory work.

What I meant was, could you cite the numbers and math you are arriving at that tell you this? The 10-K I'm seeing says they make around $200M/year from desktop TurboTax and $2.2B from Mint and other services, and that's just with 20 million Mint users. That seems plenty to me.

Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem

#152

Post by Nextgrid »

Infinitesimus wrote: post #144
FabHK wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I wouldn't even mind if they served me ads. But what they're saying is: We won't let you read our stuff unless we can track you (and see exactly what you read how long from where using which device, etc.)

"... unless you are willing to pay us for reading this content. In which case you've already paid for it so browse however you like"

Would you really trust them to not track you even if you pay? Do they even have the technical ability to not serve the tracking shit based on whether you're a paying subscriber or not?

I don't want to volunteer personal & payment details (which is more info than their tracking can get, considering I block it all) to find out.

Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem

#153

Post by tumanian »

vrih wrote: post #99
avocado4 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google buys your credit card data for advertising purposes How do they connect my credit card data to my Google activity? My Google account isn't connected to my personally identifiable information in any way. I.e. they don't have my phone number, nor do I use Google Pay.

There are lots of suggestions here of how it's done but it's essentially really really simple. There are 2 pieces of information that need to be joined.Google have your cookie and email and MasterCard have your address and probably email. If both sides have your email then job done. If not then they can use your physical address via a data broker. All it needs is some e-commerce sites that allow cookie syncing and ha…

This is correct. Experian keeps CC number and email. Google has email address, that ties to cookies. They join on email.

Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem

#154

Post by TeMPOraL »

decoyworker wrote: post #145
JulianMorrison wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shareholders don't get annoyed when you're evil, they get ($)_($) eyes.

Not true. People are pissed at a number of these companies and regulations are on the horizon. Regulations don't give me ($)_($) eyes.

As long as they're weak enough regulations, or they keep staying on the horizon, why would they care?

We'll eventually have regulations cracking down on the privacy shitshow the web is today. But how many billions of dollars were made on the abuse to date, and how many more will be made still?

Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem

#155

Post by FabHK »

Infinitesimus wrote: post #144
FabHK wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I wouldn't even mind if they served me ads. But what they're saying is: We won't let you read our stuff unless we can track you (and see exactly what you read how long from where using which device, etc.)

"... unless you are willing to pay us for reading this content. In which case you've already paid for it so browse however you like"

"... unless you log in so we know exactly who you are and can track what you read for how long" etc. etc.

Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem

#156

Post by CarlRJ »

dillonmckay wrote: post #129
avocado4 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they do (for Android users only), how would they connect location data to my credit card history? Are you claiming that Google reverse engineers PII by correlating Android location data with credit card purchase location history?

They know your approximate location when you conduct an offline credit card transaction, and the approximate time and location of the store where the transaction occurred.

And while one such data point pair isn't conclusive, getting, say, a dozen matching pairs might identify a user with high enough correlation to be useful.

Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem

#157

Post by CarlRJ »

cmroanirgo wrote: post #85
Etheryte wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That caught my eye as well, it's odd that they chose such a wording and they use it consistently on their notice page [1]: > Depending on your country, you may have the right or choice to: Opt out of some collection or uses of your Personal Information, including the use of cookies and similar technologies, the use of your Personal Information for marketing purposes, and the anonymization of your Personal Information…

Me too. It really reads like my data will be highly personalised otherwise, ie with names and other data.

YouTube keeps offering YouTubeTV and their other services with pop-up boxes where the two choices are "yes", or "skip trial", which sounds like they're offering a yes/yes choice: yes sign up for the trial, or skip the trial and go straight to buying the service. Keeps annoying me.

Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem

#158

Post by hispanic »

X-Istence wrote: post #84
tempsy wrote: post #71

Plaid is the most terrifying company in SV. The fact so many people are comfortable sharing their online banking creds with a third party, and in turn authorizing Plaid to share years of transaction data, your balances, emails, phone numbers, addresses etc scraped from your bank account is insane.

The worst part is that certain banks won't let you link an account that Plaid claims is supported based upon the routing number/account number. So for example when I attempted to link based upon routing/account number at Simple, it told me I can't continue because I should hand over my account information for the other bank to Plaid instead. I've done it, and then immediately changed my account info. So yes, technica…

I was able to get around this by typing in a junk/non-existent bank name, which dropped me into the manual routing/account number option.

Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem

#159

Post by mehrdadn »

sokoloff wrote: post #124
mehrdadn wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I was merely referring to "selling" as it pertains to products, not services. Your data would be a product, not a service. They may build services around your data that use it in some way, but it'd be the service they'd be selling, not your data. Just like how Uber would be selling a ridesharing service, not your car.

If I sell to you the knowledge that the derivative of ln(x) is 1/x, I still have that knowledge. No different than if I sell to you knowledge of the fact that cardholder XYZ lives at 123 Main St, has phone number 555-867-5309, and shopped at Giant Dildos, LLC 3 times in the summer of 2019.

It is very different. It's literally impossible for you to dispossess yourself of that derivative. So clearly you will still have it. It's not impossible for you to dispossess yourself of users' data. They're not the same thing.

Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem

#160

Post by mindslight »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #154
decoyworker wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true. People are pissed at a number of these companies and regulations are on the horizon. Regulations don't give me ($)_($) eyes.

As long as they're weak enough regulations, or they keep staying on the horizon, why would they care? We'll eventually have regulations cracking down on the privacy shitshow the web is today. But how many billions of dollars were made on the abuse to date, and how many more will be made still?

Moreso: How many surveillance systems have been bootstrapped using the full take, but will now happily function with a few unregulated breadcrumbs here and there.
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