5 ms·

This isn't that surprising as a thing that generates value. My questions are 1) how is this legal, and 2) what kind of agreement was forged with the credit car

This isn't that surprising as a thing that generates value. My questions are 1) how is this legal, and 2) what kind of agreement was forged with the credit card providers to make this possible? If we recall back a few months, analysts at Capital One were investigated and charged by the SEC related to insider trading of consumer stocks by examining very similar information streams. http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-01-23/capital-one-fraud-researchers-may-also-have-done-some-fraud http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-01-23/capital-one...

nl 11y ago
My questions are 1) how is this legal, and 2) what kind of agreement was forged with the credit card providers to make this possible? Of course it is legal. Credit card companies have had agreements in place to share information like this for years. In some cases it isn't anonymized either. Acxiom[1] is probably the best known company working in this area. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/business/a-data-broker-offers-a-peek-behind-the-curtain.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/business/a-data-broker-off...
- probdist 11y ago
  The credit card data derived real time sales estimates were criminally insider information when individual people at firms were doing it (see Capital One case). It is okay for entire firms to be based around this same type of data stream? Especially as an invitation only "not public" offering.
  - nl 11y ago
    Capital One had a financial insider relationship with the company they were trading, and were sourcing the information using that relationship. The article notes that this was "misappropriation" insider trading, not the normal case. Even then, it wasn't a clear-cut case. If you are sourcing the data from other sources and don't have that kind of relationship it really isn't going to be a problem
- astanway 11y ago
  There's a difference between selling your information to marketers and trading on material non public information. I don't really see how consumer credit card data isn't material non public information, and if indeed it weren't, we should have expected to see Visa set up a hedge fund arm years ago.
- mbesto 11y ago
  Datalogix is another: Our database contains more than $2 trillion in offline purchase-based data and we’re able to convert this data, and any CRM data, into an online universe.[0] [0] http://www.datalogix.com/audiences/online/ http://www.datalogix.com/audiences/online/

nl 11y ago

My questions are 1) how is this legal, and 2) what kind of agreement was forged with the credit card providers to make this possible? Of course it is legal. Credit card companies have had agreements in place to share information like this for years. In some cases it isn't anonymized either. Acxiom[1] is probably the best known company working in this area. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/business/a-data-broker-offers-a-peek-behind-the-curtain.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/business/a-data-broker-off...

probdist 11y ago
The credit card data derived real time sales estimates were criminally insider information when individual people at firms were doing it (see Capital One case). It is okay for entire firms to be based around this same type of data stream? Especially as an invitation only "not public" offering.
- nl 11y ago
  Capital One had a financial insider relationship with the company they were trading, and were sourcing the information using that relationship. The article notes that this was "misappropriation" insider trading, not the normal case. Even then, it wasn't a clear-cut case. If you are sourcing the data from other sources and don't have that kind of relationship it really isn't going to be a problem
astanway 11y ago
There's a difference between selling your information to marketers and trading on material non public information. I don't really see how consumer credit card data isn't material non public information, and if indeed it weren't, we should have expected to see Visa set up a hedge fund arm years ago.
mbesto 11y ago
Datalogix is another: Our database contains more than $2 trillion in offline purchase-based data and we’re able to convert this data, and any CRM data, into an online universe.[0] [0] http://www.datalogix.com/audiences/online/ http://www.datalogix.com/audiences/online/