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Mastercard Should Stop Selling Our Data

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Re: Mastercard Should Stop Selling Our Data

#191

Post by neovialogistics »

skywal_l wrote: post #174
hknmtt wrote: post #167

Actually all current card payment providers should be put out of business altogether. Two companies(master/visa) hold complete control over the entire customer spending in the whole world.- They also prevented banks from catching up to the 21st century, technology-wise, and we still do not have instant online payments. There is so many things bad with banking and many causes can be traced back to these card payment p…

Banks are already processing payments. When you put your credit card in your bank's ATM, the ATM is managed by the bank. It connects to your bank server and all the authorisation and processing is being done by the bank. Visa and mastercard provide connection to other banks. When you put your card in another bank's ATM or buy something in a business associated with another bank. Getting ride of the Visa/Mastercard du…

A pseudo-public joint venture model is viable in internet telecoms (eg ICANN), so why not in payment clearing?

Re: Mastercard Should Stop Selling Our Data

#192

Post by Lio »

corkybeta wrote: post #80

cardholders Mastercard thinks will be “high-value”—predictions used to target certain people and encourage them to spend more money. Sorry, I don't understand, perhaps because I am in the UK not US. My bank issues my Mastercard, so I don't have a direct relationship with them. How would they target me?

My worry is that that merchants offer higher prices based on their assessment of my private data.

We've had the situation before when booking holidays that my wife sees higher prices for the same hotel on her laptop while sitting right next to me. Once she cleared cookies the price went down to match what I've been offered on a clean computer.

That was a few years ago so I would imagine IDing potential customers is done via browser finger printing now rather than cookies and so harder to protect against.

Really, who wants their bank or payment network to collude in higher prices?

Re: Mastercard Should Stop Selling Our Data

#193

Post by generic92034 »

skywal_l wrote: post #174
hknmtt wrote: post #167

Actually all current card payment providers should be put out of business altogether. Two companies(master/visa) hold complete control over the entire customer spending in the whole world.- They also prevented banks from catching up to the 21st century, technology-wise, and we still do not have instant online payments. There is so many things bad with banking and many causes can be traced back to these card payment p…

Banks are already processing payments. When you put your credit card in your bank's ATM, the ATM is managed by the bank. It connects to your bank server and all the authorisation and processing is being done by the bank. Visa and mastercard provide connection to other banks. When you put your card in another bank's ATM or buy something in a business associated with another bank. Getting ride of the Visa/Mastercard du…

> Getting ride of the Visa/Mastercard duopoly would mean that all banks must connect to all other banks, which they do not want to do, believe me. That would be an administrative hell for them.

What would be so strange about that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area

Re: Mastercard Should Stop Selling Our Data

#194

Post by etiennebausson »

wayfinder wrote: post #170
quicklime wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some benefits, but it does complicate the transaction significantly. It's no longer between two parties (a consumer and a merchant), there are now at least two more: a lender and a credit bureau. And that's why we're in this mess to begin with. Credit card transactions are reported to credit bureaus (from a quick web search, it looks like debit card transactions aren't) and this normalizes the idea that you…

Credit reporting makes getting loans easier because lenders are more willing to give loans when they can look up your credit rating instead playing it safe and declining you because they have nothing to judge the risk with. You also get fraud protection. It’s not free, but you’re not necessarily paying for it. The main concern is that some people are definitely paying for it disproportionally more than others.

I would disagree, as things stand, getting a loan is easier if you have a good credit rating, but it is a deformation of the space.

If there was no credit reporting, the lender would still need to loan just as much. They would base their decisions on other factors (down payment, wages, employ stability, assets, ...) rather than the extremely invasive credit rating.

Re: Mastercard Should Stop Selling Our Data

#195

Post by anjel »

squokko wrote: post #184
nologic01 wrote: post #153

Imagine you go to a market notorious for haggling and the company that sold you your wallet monitors all your transactions and reports them to whomever of the market sellers pays most. You are now the fat chicken, ready to be plucked: You just bought a hammer, now you need nails. From your social media trail sellers can also infer you are somewhat of a dimwit. Hurry, nails are in high demand in your area. But no worr…

The average person simply has no hope of understanding the flows of modern global capital, data, weapons, etc. Back in the day, if the local leather tanner was polluting the town water supply... you'd just go tell him to stop, and if he didn't... Nowadays the only people who have any idea what's actually going on are the ones who are profiting the most from it and have no incentive to shut it down.

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.

-Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

Re: Mastercard Should Stop Selling Our Data

#196

Post by ankit219 »

skywal_l wrote: post #174
hknmtt wrote: post #167

Actually all current card payment providers should be put out of business altogether. Two companies(master/visa) hold complete control over the entire customer spending in the whole world.- They also prevented banks from catching up to the 21st century, technology-wise, and we still do not have instant online payments. There is so many things bad with banking and many causes can be traced back to these card payment p…

Banks are already processing payments. When you put your credit card in your bank's ATM, the ATM is managed by the bank. It connects to your bank server and all the authorisation and processing is being done by the bank. Visa and mastercard provide connection to other banks. When you put your card in another bank's ATM or buy something in a business associated with another bank. Getting ride of the Visa/Mastercard du…

> The alternative would be some sort of joint venture between all the banks. The result would less fees for the banks but no benefits for the client as the bank would keep the margin and it would still be a privacy hell.

This is what happens in India. UPI (unified payment interface) was launched by NPCI which is kind of a joint venture between the regulator and banks. In an abstract sense, the bank processing the payment does connect with every other bank via NPCI.

The underlying rails are an older infrastructure of IMPS[1] which is the interbank money transfer system.

I do not agree with the privacy hell part. When bank transfers happen, they anyway have to do the required checks with the other banks. Frankly, people in my circle never even cared if it could be a privacy issue for us.

On another note, there was always incentive to launch NPCI in india because 1/ The infra is relatively newer so it was easier to do (java I think) 2/ Almost all banks' software was built by Infosys/TCS etc. (in java) and that meant the ones integrating would be the same parties who practically used the same architecture 3/ Visa/Mastercard did not have that kind of penetration in 2010 so settlements were a real issue faced by every bank.

In US or European case, the issue seems bigger because the problem is half solved by Visa/Mastercard, so there is a bit of inertia to solve the same problem again.

[1]: https://www.npci.org.in/PDF/npci/upi/Product-Booklet.pdf

Re: Mastercard Should Stop Selling Our Data

#197

Post by Lutger »

hknmtt wrote: post #167

Actually all current card payment providers should be put out of business altogether. Two companies(master/visa) hold complete control over the entire customer spending in the whole world.- They also prevented banks from catching up to the 21st century, technology-wise, and we still do not have instant online payments. There is so many things bad with banking and many causes can be traced back to these card payment p…

Not the whole world, this is mostly in the United States. In Europe its more like what you describe, banks are the card payment provider and we have (near) instant online transfers. Credit cards are relatively unimportant here.

Re: Mastercard Should Stop Selling Our Data

#198

Post by addandsubtract »

bredren wrote: post #164
Rastonbury wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple will hate if this blows up with a headline of "Apple card users spending data being sold"

Neither the EFF or PIRG mention Apple Card. I was under the impression that Apple had taken measures to prevent exactly this kind of information from being leaked from Apple Card use. That is, beyond rotation of card numbers whenever Apple Pay is used. Knowing Apple has put an emphasis on customer privacy, and that Apple Card is run on Mastercard makes zero mention of it in either article kind of stand out to me. It…

I'm not familiar with Apple Card, but aren't all privacy measures only point-of-sale facing? As in, you pay with a random card number and the shop can't track you, but Mastercard obviously still has a record on you. So unless Apple is a middleman able to issue Mastercards on their own behalf(?) for their customers, I don't see how much more privacy they can offer.

Re: Mastercard Should Stop Selling Our Data

#199

Post by amelius »

gleenn wrote: post #181
nologic01 wrote: post #153

Imagine you go to a market notorious for haggling and the company that sold you your wallet monitors all your transactions and reports them to whomever of the market sellers pays most. You are now the fat chicken, ready to be plucked: You just bought a hammer, now you need nails. From your social media trail sellers can also infer you are somewhat of a dimwit. Hurry, nails are in high demand in your area. But no worr…

I think the answer is very simple: people don't understand and even if they do then they don't understand that what might seem minor "well whatever, it's just some nails this one time," and it doesn't cross over to the huge power this data yields in aggregate.

Also, people like the discounts they get from their loyalty cards, and also the free stuff on the internet.

What they don't know is that they pay twice, once with their data and once with money. And the prices they pay now include the cost of the adtech too.

Re: Mastercard Should Stop Selling Our Data

#200

Post by bArray »

nologic01 wrote: post #153

Imagine you go to a market notorious for haggling and the company that sold you your wallet monitors all your transactions and reports them to whomever of the market sellers pays most. You are now the fat chicken, ready to be plucked: You just bought a hammer, now you need nails. From your social media trail sellers can also infer you are somewhat of a dimwit. Hurry, nails are in high demand in your area. But no worr…

Better yet, they now have those e-ink price labels. They could literally update as you walk towards them to show the price they will sell to you.

If you walk off and don't pick something up, they could then change the offer a little. It's no longer '2 for 1', it's now '3 for 2 with a free X'.

Disgusting.

> I just can't understand how people have come to accept such erosion of their privacy, ultimately their very own economic interests and agency under the hands of manipulative operators and captured regulators.

The frog born in boiling water doesn't realise it is hot, it's all he ever knew. The age bracket with the largest disposable income now doesn't know any different, it's how it always was.

> What kind of collective inanity allows such social degeneration. Was it always like that? Is there any hope?

No, technology made it far easier. It's now targeted and automated, it's as worse as it has ever been and continues to get worse. There is not a politician in any land willing to do anything about it - more product sold at higher prices means larger taxes. (And that's if the company doesn't lobby on top.)

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