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While cell-phone companies could function without keeping records of my location, credit cards couldn't function without keeping records of my purchases—at leas
by JadeNB 7y ago
While cell-phone companies could function without keeping records of my location, credit cards couldn't function without keeping records of my purchases—at least until the next billing cycle. Somehow this makes their abuse of that information less surprising to me—which doesn't mean I like it any better!
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 7y agoThat isn't actually true. It would be perfectly possible to build a payment system where the participants by default don't know the identity of most other parties. Like, it would be perfectly possible for a merchant to encrypt the transaction description with a public key of the customer, and their bank only submitting the encrypted record with the amount and the account to debit to the card issuer, who would debit the account and pass on the encrypted record to their customer. That's just a random idea, but the point is that you could achieve much the same result with a lot less data collection if you actually cared to.
- reaperducer 7y agoIt would be perfectly possible to build a payment system where the participants by default don't know the identity of most other parties. It's been done. Cash. Checks. Travelers checks. Money orders. Cashiers checks. Gift cards. Pre-paid debt cards.
- reaperducer 7y agoI'm OK with the banks or even the card companies keeping a record of transactions. But Google boasts that it buys 80% of all the world's credit card transaction data for its profiling. That's just not cool.
- icedchai 7y agoLook at it this way: Would you prefer to received generic, un-targeted advertisements? Or would you rather something that is more likely suited to your interests? The truth is "profiling" / ad targeting is actually a benefit to the consumer.
- mindslight 7y ago... so insisted the Surveillance Valley reality distortion field of the late 2000's, leading to an ever-growing backlash now including this law. No, pervasive surveillance is not a benefit to me because it facilitates smoother attempts at psychological manipulation. It's generally a good thing when spam stands out as much as possible, making it easier to ignore.
- reaperducer 7y agoI can receive targeted advertisements without being surveilled and sold. It's been done for hundreds of years with billboards, newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. Heck, even web sites can do it, and did for many years before Google even existed.
- icedchai 7y agoThose aren't considered targeted advertising.
- reaperducer 7y agoAdvertising bird watching equipment in a bird watching magazine isn't targeted? "Targeted advertising" has been around longer than you think.
- icedchai 7y agoNot in the traditional sense, no. Also those same magazines are selling their subscriber lists to other advertisers and data companies. Privacy is an illusion and always has been.