
Visa, MasterCard Looking Into Online Targeted Advertising Using Credit-Card Data - ssclafani
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970204002304576627030651339352-lMyQjAxMTAxMDIwNDEyNDQyWj.html
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rufibarbatus
Here's something immediately useful for those who can't be arsed reading the
whole article:

> _People can remove their information from MasterCard's analysis by providing
> their card number on the "Data Analytics Opt-Out" page at
> www.mastercard.us/privacy._

There are three different opt-outs available (roughly "stop tracking my
browser", "stop tracking my email", and "stop tracking my card"), and apart
from a CAPTCHA, it's really very frictionless to opt-out.

Now time to read into how exactly they define "opting out" and what that
entails to me and my data.

EDIT: apparently, they're serving those opt-out forms via Akamai, so I get a
lovely "SSL Error" page in Chrome when I hard type the "https". Cute.

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pavel_lishin
I can't seem to be able to click the "opt out" button here:
<http://www.mastercard.us/privacy/web-analytics-opt-out.html>

And the fact that the data analytics page doesn't default to HTTPS is a slap
in the face.

I wonder what they'd do if someone wrote a script to opt out every possible
MasterCard number.

~~~
rufibarbatus
> _I wonder what they'd do if someone wrote a script to opt out every possible
> MasterCard number._

I suppose that's what that pitiful CAPTCHA is in place against!

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rkalla
Every trend in history has that seminal event that defined the future to
come... If our spending habits are opened to advertising interests, I would
consider that such an event and the beginning of a nasty slippery slope with
unexpected consequences down the road for all of us.

This scares me.

~~~
fletchowns
_If our spending habits are opened to advertising interests_

It already is, all over the place. Login to Amazon and take a look at the
suggested products. It's just that it's typically done on a store by store
basis, and doesn't encompass every single purchase you make.

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redwood
Correct me if I'm wrong though but today only the stores see the products we
buy, where as the credit card companies see only what we spend at each store.
The combination is much more scary.

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DanBC
> for instance, a weight-loss ad to a person who just swiped their card at a
> fast-food chain

This isn't always accurate. I know people with anorexia who buy diet products
at the UK store "Boots", and who use their loyalty cards when they do so.
Boots then sends them information about weight-loss plans; slimming
medication; and so on. One can imagine similar happening with alcoholics.

And I'd be interested to see how legal this is in Europe. It seems to be a
clear breach of data protection laws.

~~~
jnorthrop
> It seems to be a clear breach of data protection laws.

If the customer consents to the collection and use of the data it is within
the current European law. All they would need to do is get consent when
signing up for, or renewing a card.

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nodata
When banks were first founded, there was a big hoo-ha over how much of an
insight they had into people's private lives. After the hoo-ha, lots of strict
regulations were put in place governing what could be done with the data.

Looks like we're back there again.

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dredmorbius
Got any specifics on that? I'm curious.

Banks were first founded in the 17th/18th century, FWIW.

~~~
nodata
I've tried, but I can't find the reference.

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Joakal
Nice, now I learnt to no longer buy 'private' stuff with the cards. I'll warn
other people with this article.

They FUD'd themselves unnecessarily.

~~~
rufibarbatus
FWIW it's been a rule of thumb since, well, always not to buy private stuff
with your credit card. Issuer banks and sometimes the CC networks themselves
are constantly profiling you in order to better assess the risk you pose (and
in turn how much credit you ought to have).

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d5tryr
The more organisations turn to advertising to monetize their products and
services, the more valuable products and services _without_ advertising will
become.

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jplewicke
They're also going to be selling off real-time feeds of per-company sales data
to investors:

MasterCard has launched a new product for investors leveraging its huge global
panel of transaction data from over 1.7B cards. This panel is global, more
representative, more timely (weekly data to get ahead of monthly comps) and
more customizable than any other transactional database available to the buy-
side.

There is a broad range of topics on which we can provide investors with timely
insights with actual sales transactions. Here are just a few samples of the
topics we have done work.

• Detailed Macro reads across 14 sectors in the US and 4 in the UK

    
    
          •         Department Stores – Total sales, transactions and Avg Basket size across segments
    
    
          •         Office Supply Stores – Total sales, transactions and Avg Basket size for ODP, OMX and SPLS
    
    
          •         Home Improvement – Total sales, transactions and Avg Basket size for HD, LOW, LL and Ace
    
    
          •         Consumer Electronics – Total Sales, Transactions segmented by price point (e.g. to get a read on flat-panel/laptop sales)
    
    
          •         Other Retailers across a broad range of segments – Total Sales and Transactions
    
    
          •         Grocery stores – Total sales, transactions and Avg Basket size
    
    
          •         E-Commerce—Segmenting direct v. store sales trends, analysis of e-commerce companies like AMZN, NILE and many others
    
    
          •         Hotels – direct vs. OTA bookings/international trends, highly correlative chain hotels RevPar, Vegas-specific hotels
    
    
          •         Airlines – forward looking bookings as an indicator of RASM
    
    
          •         Cable/Satellite – ARPU, Churn and Total sales

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akkartik
Credit card companies selling their data to BlueKai/Exelate - _shudder_.

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fletchowns
Isn't Google (and MasterCard) already doing this with Google Wallet?

<http://google.com/wallet/>

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Joeboy
Showing "a weight-loss ad to a person who just swiped their card at a fast-
food chain" seems like an odd example. I guess it might work, but it strikes
me as counterintuitive.

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kokey
I have no problem with this. I'm all for advertisements being either more
entertaining and funny, or more for things that I actually want. It's better
than being blasted with stuff that I have no need for, even if they put in
pictures of half naked women in it.

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ck2
problem solved: "disallow third party cookies"

(very easy in firefox, it's a checkbox)

Note to developers - never rely on 3rd party cookies, just like never rely on
a referer.

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vegai
Hmm, time to move to cash or bitcoin?

