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Avoiding tracking (which credit/debit networks, banks & credit unions actively leverage against you) is another reasonable use for cash. I don't want Chase kno

Avoiding tracking (which credit/debit networks, banks & credit unions actively leverage against you) is another reasonable use for cash. I don't want Chase knowing I shop at Goodwill, if they choose to pass that along to one of the credit agencies (there are hundreds of small ones in the USA FYI), it would nreflect poorly. Same for using anything bbesides cash when buying liquor, cigarettes or other low class/socially questionable items. Edit: Using credit cards at thrift stores may affect your credit report: http://www.wistv.com/story/10670982/warning-shopping-at-thrift-stores-could-affect-your-credit-rating http://www.wistv.com/story/10670982/warning-shopping-at-thri...

throwaway76543 8y ago
Using credit cards at thrift stores cannot affect your credit score. That article is poorly written and is discussing impact to credit issued by the credit card issuer. It may impact models run by the bank which issues your credit card but it will not impact lending from any other source and will not impact your credit score. No one can share individual purchase data with other lenders, that sort of data sharing is prohibited.
- sroussey 8y ago
  1. Square, for example, does both payment processing and lending. 2. The idea of what you can or can not do varies quite a bit based on jurisdiction. For example, just searching for things related to democracy can lower your credit score in China.
  - throwaway76543 8y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean with the first bullet point. All banks which do payment processing do lending. It's inherent in the nature of the service, that's what the above article is about.
- metildaa 8y ago
  The data is up for sale, notably Google buys this data (see link below). If Google can buy it, so can one of the hundreds of credit agencies out there, ditto for potential lenders. It is obviously priced low enough for non-lenders to buy transaction history in bulk, seeing as Google is willing to plunk down for a massive amount of transaction data: https://slate.com/technology/2018/08/google-mastercard-data-track-offline-purchases.html https://slate.com/technology/2018/08/google-mastercard-data-...
  - throwaway76543 8y ago
    No, the data is not up for sale. As the article you linked clearly states the data is anonymized and cannot be tied to individuals. It's simply not a thing. It would violate PCI-DSS.
    - nickpsecurity 8y ago
      "As the article you linked clearly states the data is anonymized and cannot be tied to individuals." You should never believe that for two reasons: 1. Companies often get away with lying about that. 2. De-anonymization techniques, esp if having multiple sources of data to cross-compare, are improving every year thanks to an active, research community. Most incentives work against your privacy. Most companies act on incentives. Best to just not share your data if you're concerned about where it might end up.
      - StudentStuff 8y ago
        With regard to #2, I covered in my comment to the poster your replying to that correlating partial names and the store location with registered voters from your state's freely available voter registry would de-anonymize most transactions in the dataset. Nevermind that Google has location data for Android users (and Google Maps data on Android), and better profiles of people than the voter database has. Their attempts at user de-anonymization will likely be even more accurate.
    - StudentStuff 8y ago
      Short of reducing the transaction dataset to purchase amounts and dates, or simply respecting customers privacy and not transferring this data, Mastercard is not anonymizing this data. Google is using this data to link online ads they display with in store purchases, thus Mastercard is giving them enough data that they can correlate who views an ad from Google's ad network with their in store purchase. Partial names would suffice for this purchase, combined with store location for the transaction, one could de-anonymize most customers in a given dataset by correlating using freely available datasets like the state voter registry (which often provides full names, addresses, elections voted in & more). Nevermind that Google has location data for Android users (and Google Maps data on Android), and better profiles of people than the voter database has. Their attempts at user de-anonymization will likely be even more accurate.
- SilasX 8y ago
  That’s beside the point. It doesn’t currently affect “the” credit score, but nothing stops some Goodhart-ignorant genius from incorporating such information into future models, and nothing stops current lenders from using that information for lending decisions even if the credit score looks good.
tobylane 8y ago
Contactless may help you here as it doesn't give your real CC details to the machine, it generates numbers on the spot.
- metildaa 8y ago
  Credit card numbers are immaterial, especially for Google's use case of showing advertisers that their spending is resulting in tangible, offline purchases. Transaction amount and a timestamp combined with Android Location data is enough to deanonymize most customers. Any extra data like partial names, cardholder addresses, rewards program data (provided by the advertiser) will only enhance this dataset and generate more matches

throwaway76543 8y ago

Using credit cards at thrift stores cannot affect your credit score. That article is poorly written and is discussing impact to credit issued by the credit card issuer. It may impact models run by the bank which issues your credit card but it will not impact lending from any other source and will not impact your credit score. No one can share individual purchase data with other lenders, that sort of data sharing is prohibited.

sroussey 8y ago
1. Square, for example, does both payment processing and lending. 2. The idea of what you can or can not do varies quite a bit based on jurisdiction. For example, just searching for things related to democracy can lower your credit score in China.
- throwaway76543 8y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean with the first bullet point. All banks which do payment processing do lending. It's inherent in the nature of the service, that's what the above article is about.
metildaa 8y ago
The data is up for sale, notably Google buys this data (see link below). If Google can buy it, so can one of the hundreds of credit agencies out there, ditto for potential lenders. It is obviously priced low enough for non-lenders to buy transaction history in bulk, seeing as Google is willing to plunk down for a massive amount of transaction data: https://slate.com/technology/2018/08/google-mastercard-data-track-offline-purchases.html https://slate.com/technology/2018/08/google-mastercard-data-...
- throwaway76543 8y ago
  No, the data is not up for sale. As the article you linked clearly states the data is anonymized and cannot be tied to individuals. It's simply not a thing. It would violate PCI-DSS.
  - nickpsecurity 8y ago
    "As the article you linked clearly states the data is anonymized and cannot be tied to individuals." You should never believe that for two reasons: 1. Companies often get away with lying about that. 2. De-anonymization techniques, esp if having multiple sources of data to cross-compare, are improving every year thanks to an active, research community. Most incentives work against your privacy. Most companies act on incentives. Best to just not share your data if you're concerned about where it might end up.
    - StudentStuff 8y ago
      With regard to #2, I covered in my comment to the poster your replying to that correlating partial names and the store location with registered voters from your state's freely available voter registry would de-anonymize most transactions in the dataset. Nevermind that Google has location data for Android users (and Google Maps data on Android), and better profiles of people than the voter database has. Their attempts at user de-anonymization will likely be even more accurate.
  - StudentStuff 8y ago
    Short of reducing the transaction dataset to purchase amounts and dates, or simply respecting customers privacy and not transferring this data, Mastercard is not anonymizing this data. Google is using this data to link online ads they display with in store purchases, thus Mastercard is giving them enough data that they can correlate who views an ad from Google's ad network with their in store purchase. Partial names would suffice for this purchase, combined with store location for the transaction, one could de-anonymize most customers in a given dataset by correlating using freely available datasets like the state voter registry (which often provides full names, addresses, elections voted in & more). Nevermind that Google has location data for Android users (and Google Maps data on Android), and better profiles of people than the voter database has. Their attempts at user de-anonymization will likely be even more accurate.
SilasX 8y ago
That’s beside the point. It doesn’t currently affect “the” credit score, but nothing stops some Goodhart-ignorant genius from incorporating such information into future models, and nothing stops current lenders from using that information for lending decisions even if the credit score looks good.

tobylane 8y ago

Contactless may help you here as it doesn't give your real CC details to the machine, it generates numbers on the spot.

metildaa 8y ago
Credit card numbers are immaterial, especially for Google's use case of showing advertisers that their spending is resulting in tangible, offline purchases. Transaction amount and a timestamp combined with Android Location data is enough to deanonymize most customers. Any extra data like partial names, cardholder addresses, rewards program data (provided by the advertiser) will only enhance this dataset and generate more matches