Credit cards have a privacy problem

I'm not arguing against the general idiocy of this, but the net effect should be to keep money away from such banks.

My understanding of the ACH system is that it's best used in a "pull" manner, as if you're writing a check. Link your Simple account from another bank and initiate the pull from there. (Then work on transitioning your activity to the better bank while you're at it).

This article is severely deficient and written to draw clicks.

It doesn't go far enough (or at all, really) to explain that the credit card issuer doesn't see the data. They see a transaction amount. There's no banana.

The current top comment about Google linking online to B&M purchases isn't a leak of privacy: it's strictly private both to Google and the merchant. You are being tracked, but not in a privacy-revealing way, just in an uber-annoying I'm-still-being-targetted so-it's-creepy-and-annoying way.

That retail merchants are tracking you is a huge, huge problem. The CC facilitates this by linking all your purchases into a single history, but it isn't the CC per se that is the problem. eg the store's own rewards card specifically does this. They don't even care if you give your actual PII up to signup for the rewards card, all they care about is that they can [even anonymously] identify the purchase stream tied to an individual.

They should go to length to better distinguish this problem because then they can get to the fact that every Apple Pay transaction is tokenized and not linkable to prior or future Apple Pay transactions.

> Opting them out is much lesser transgression onto their will.

So, that makes it okay? They've been abused before, so what what's the big deal if we do it too? That's a troubling perspective to me. Two wrongs don't necessarily make a right.

I think this is very straightforward. You, as a third party, have no place making decisions for me without my consent in this case. If I have a relationship with Visa or MasterCard, please stay out of it. The appropriate way for this to change is for a) me or someone I've authorized to request it, b) the company in question deciding not to do it anymore, or c) a legislative body with jurisdiction mandating a change through law or regulation.

If you have access to my credit card number and I haven't given it to you, the only appropriate things you should do with it are to notify me, the company providing it, or the authorities that it's been exposed and should probably be changed. If I have given it to you to authorize a payment, you are authorized to use it for that payment (and possibly later payments that I agree to), not to keep it to use as you see fit later on without my consent.

If you have my card because I've given it to you and you show me a dialog letting me know you can opt me out and give me the choice, that's acceptable. But I view any action taken on my behalf without my consent with regard to this as a violation of my trust, privacy, and personal information. We are in a very scary place if we as random third partied think we're allowed to make decisions for people just because we think it's better for them.

The person in question has a relationship with the credit card company, in that they have requested and use the credit card (and if they aren't using it, nothing is being collected). I agree that opting into collection automatically is less than ideal, and I don't want it to happen, but this isn't some third party getting between some other nefarious third party and myself, it's them injecting themselves into an ongoing business relationship between two parties.

You can label them surveillance companies all you want, and in some contexts it might be the most fitting description. In this context, I would say it's more fitting to say they are contractual partners abusing the looseness of the contract for their own benefit.

Just in case you missed where this particular thread started, the top level comment is about the opt out forms for data collection at Visa and MasterCard, and the reply's (possibly somewhat in jest) suggestion that since the CAPTCHA is so simple, someone just use whatever card numbers they have access to to opt people out automatically. All my comments are specifically in that context, which is one of random third parties using card numbers they shouldn't have direct access to anyway to alter the business relationship of others without authorization.

Due to the constraints on understanding, I believe "fine print" in contracts carries zero moral weight. In order for Visa and Mastercard to credibly claim people have opted in, there needs to be an overt choice (no default already-checked option) as part of the direct card relationship, as well as specific consideration for that specific aspect of the relationship to remove any incentive to downplay the choice.

Furthermore, I do not view a person's associating with Visa/MC in today's society to be in any way voluntary - opting out is only possible at significant personal expense. So the mere existence of a business relationship also cannot be a basis for general consent. (As an aside: people generally do not contract with Visa/MC directly)

Taken together, these put "abuse" of a "business relationship" is in the exact same category as interjected actions by "third" parties - unwanted transgressions. They only feel different because we've become fatigued to accepting these transgressions when they pad someone else's bottom line.

And yes I am aware of the context of the discussion. I wouldn't personally do such a thing, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't applaud someone who did.