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Credit cards have a privacy problem

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem

#81

Post by kbenson »

adtac wrote: post #15
arfrank wrote: post #3

Will leave these here, just one small step to help you regain your privacy: * https://marketingreportoptout.visa.com/OPTOUT/request.do * https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/about-mastercard/what-we-do/...

Did anyone else notice Mastercard's easily breakable captcha? It's just unmodified text with the same noise filter added to all codes. Perhaps there's opportunity here for someone to be Robinhood here and improve the privacy of a lot of people...

I'm pretty sure that's a good way to get the endpoint flagged as a target of abuse, and the page pulled until they can figure out what's going on, resulting in anyone who wants to opt-out after that point either running into a temporary or permanent problem, depending if they ever bother to put it back online.

How about instead of fraudulently providing someone else's credit card because "we know best", we just make sure to spread the pages as much as possible where appropriate, and let people make their own educated choices (and hopefully it opens their eyes to other places in their lives they can do so as well).

I understand the impetus to help, but it's important to consider that what one person views as helping another might view as terribly invasive in itself.

Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem

#82

Post by dehrmann »

Yup, do-no-evil Google buys your credit card data for advertising purposes: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-an...

Companies need to start thinking of this less in the lens of "evil" and more principle of least astonishment. Would users be surprised and angry to learn you do this? Then don't.

Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem

#84

Post by X-Istence »

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, technically Plaid has my historical data, but at least they won't get it going forward. It really sucks though, because it locks my money into a singular bank otherwise.

Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem

#85

Post by cmroanirgo »

Etheryte wrote: post #53
krick wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(On Mastercard site) > To opt-out from our anonymization of your personal information... Uh, I'm no lawyer, but the wording really gets my attention here.

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.

Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem

#86

Post by avocado4 »

dehrmann wrote: post #82

Yup, do-no-evil Google buys your credit card data for advertising purposes: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-an... Companies need to start thinking of this less in the lens of "evil" and more principle of least astonishment. Would users be surprised and angry to learn you do this? Then don't.

> 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.

Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem

#87

Post by nordsieck »

avocado4 wrote: post #86
dehrmann wrote: post #82

Yup, do-no-evil Google buys your credit card data for advertising purposes: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-an... Companies need to start thinking of this less in the lens of "evil" and more principle of least astonishment. Would users be surprised and angry to learn you do this? Then don't.

> 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.

> How do they connect my credit card data to my Google activity?

Most people have a phone number with google for gmail (you didn't need one in the beginning, but do now). There's also their wallet, app store, voice, broadband, phone plan, etc.

Some people will dodge all of that, but most won't.

Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem

#88

Post by jammygit »

jammygit wrote: post #9
bradknowles wrote: post #2

While I do love me some privacy.com, unfortunately they only allow you to tie payments to bank accounts, not credit cards. So, it's a virtual debit card, not a virtual credit card. Now, they do let you set transaction limits, and daily/weekly/monthly limits, as well as either locking the card to the first merchant to use it or to make it a "burner" one-time only card. So, there's lots of additional controls there. Th…

The privacy.com business promise is privacy, but their privacy policy (as of several years ago) did not actually promise much. I emailed them about it and they said they were surprised by the oversight. I wonder if they changed it

> We may share data that is not personally identifiable with third parties

> Cookies and Tracking Technologies: We and our partners use cookies or similar technologies to analyze trends, administer the website, track users’ movements around the website, and gather information about our user base, such as location information based on IP addresses

They also transfer data in the case of a query about a sale.

This would be a bit less awkward if the name of the company wasn’t “privacy”

Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem

#89

Post by dehrmann »

nordsieck wrote: post #87
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.

> How do they connect my credit card data to my Google activity? Most people have a phone number with google for gmail (you didn't need one in the beginning, but do now). There's also their wallet, app store, voice, broadband, phone plan, etc. Some people will dodge all of that, but most won't.

Don't forget location data.

Re: Credit cards have a privacy problem

#90

Post by patio11 »

mehrdadn wrote: post #4

I've always wondered: is the data the reason why credit card companies are willing to give cash back as high as 5% even to customers who carefully operate them at a clear loss for them?

Ask a simple question, get a simple answer: no.

The reason credit card companies are willing to give customers rewards/cashback is that they’re competing, primarily for interchange revenue. Most cards are guaranteed to be profitable for the issuer (ex-credit risk); some models (5% rolling category up to $75 back, etc) are not strictly guaranteed to be profitable, but they’re running a portfolio strategy.

You don’t need to make money on every account. You need to make money on every pool of, say, 100,000 accounts. One could conceive of rebate schemes poorly designed enough to not do that, but the industry broadly doesn’t ship them.

There are people who make hobbies off of attempting to get the financial industry’s sweet sweet marketing dollars. The financial industry can afford an infinite number of business analysts and geeks. The marketing dollars are still on offer. What does this suggest to you as to the portfolio-wide impact of hobbyists who exploit the offers?

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