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In my profile, they managed to obtain a `PURCHASE` event from Macy's -- for an in-person purchase at a physical store. Macy's has my email address and certainly
by kpozin 7y ago
In my profile, they managed to obtain a `PURCHASE` event from Macy's -- for an in-person purchase at a physical store. Macy's has my email address and certainly linked it to my credit card number, but this is nonetheless seriously creepy.
I just tried to change my email address on Facebook and discovered that they canonicalize plus and dot variations in gmail.com addresses, and thus claim that the new email address is already associated with an account. Ended up having to create a completely new email alias on my own domain.
- fabiandesimone 7y agoThis is likely based on an Offline Conversion which advertisers can bulk upload to FB
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- hatenberg 7y agoGoogle has long bought credit card transactions and so probably have dozens of others. The root cause is that they are allowed to be sold
- chippy 7y agoare credit cards different from debit cards in this regard? Do some credit cards not sell your transactions?
- LeifCarrotson 7y agoNo, if it's data they can collect it's data they can sell. Can't sell cash transactions yet!
- Shish2k 7y agoUnless you use a loyalty card at the same time ;)
- organsnyder 7y agoUnless you are carrying your cell phone at the time—not sure anyone is doing this yet, but I have heard of at least one chain that tracks customers' cell phone locations via triangulation.
- gpvos 7y agoWhich chain?
- sp332 7y agoAs of 2013, at least Macy's. https://lifehacker.com/how-retail-stores-track-you-using-your-smartphone-and-827512308 https://lifehacker.com/how-retail-stores-track-you-using-you...
- godshatter 7y agoAnother good reason to keep wifi off unless you really need it.
- organsnyder 7y agoNot going to name them since I don't have verified firsthand knowledge. It's a large regional chain based in the midwestern US.
- artificial 7y agoThe accuracy by Bluetooth is horrendous.
- reaperducer 7y agoHow accurate does it need to be? If you shop in a market stall, or a bodega, then you could be tied to a neighboring store. But if you're in a regular-sized (American) store, it's certainly good enough.
- organsnyder 7y agoWhat about wifi? My understanding is this chain uses their in-store access point mesh for this.
- robjan 7y agoIt's the card network (MasterCard, Visa, AE) that sells your data. They each have their own op out: * https://marketingreportoptout.visa.com/OPTOUT/request.do https://marketingreportoptout.visa.com/OPTOUT/request.do * https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/about-mastercard/what-we-do/.. https://www.mastercard.us/en-us/about-mastercard/what-we-do/....
- wh1t3n01s3 7y agoAre these datas for sale in Europe as well?
- kuschku 7y agoWith VISA and MasterCard yes, but e.g. the German girocard network on its own doesn’t sell anything, and there it depends on your bank (and most banks don’t sell that data either). So if you have the choice between using a girocard or a credit/debit card to buy a product, the credit/debit card is significantly more likely to sell all your data.
- dd36 7y agoIt’s crazy that they do this yet still charge nearly 3%.
- dmayle 7y agoThey don't charge 3%, they charge about a tenth of a percent (0.11%). What you think of as fees is actually a basket of charges going to different parties. almost 2% goes to your (the purchaser) credit card company to cover the risk of you not paying them, about a percent goes to the store's bank to cover the case when they have to give the money back (either because it was a fraudulent online transaction, or the store cheated the customer and the customer went to their card issuer, etc.) and that tiny little bit that's left goes to Visa/MasterCard. Credit transaction fees actually make lots of sense and are grounded in the actual cost of the financial product. As a merchant, you can choose to accept only debit cards to avoid the cost
- zerotolerance 7y agoI'd argue that the root cause is that they have any value whatsoever.
- achecouter 7y agoIt’s better to not use the same email address everywhere. I use SimpleLogin to create email alias and it works great so far.
- reaperducer 7y agoI just don't give my e-mail address to anyone. Anyone. Doctors, vets, especially retail stores. I just tell them that I don't have one. On the very rate occasions anyone has balked I tell them I just moved and haven't set up my internet yet.
- lawlessone 7y ago>, they managed to obtain a `PURCHASE` event from Macy's interesting.. they could use that to predict earnings..
- AznHisoka 7y agoA lot of hedge funds purchase credit card data to do exactly that.
- buckminster 7y agoPredict? Facebook buys earnings data directly from payroll companies.
- reaperducer 7y agointeresting.. they could use that to predict earnings.. A few years ago when Chipolte had its little food scare, Foursquare used its data to predict how much the restaurant chain's revenues would decline. IIRC, it was accurate to within 1%.
- cosmie 7y agoYou don't even necessarily have to predict earnings. If you've ever connected to your financial account via a service like Plaid or it's ilk, that service has an API endpoint[1] they can call to neatly package up your income information. Sometimes it seems innocuous and unassuming for a one time use like identity verification, or to set up automated payments, or a one off transfer/disbursement. Other times it's for stuff like getting a consolidated view of your personal finance (i.e. a transaction aggregator such as Mint). But if you authenticate for anything, that service has access to everything. And unless you rotate your financial passwords on a frequent basis, that access continues pretty much indefinitely[2]. [1] https://plaid.com/products/income/ https://plaid.com/products/income/ [2] Not true for 100% of cases, but a general rule of thumb that's applicable to the majority of institutions they log into with your credentials.
- alasdair_ 7y agoBy “they” I assumed the GP was talking about Facebook being able to predict Macy’s earnings before they were publicly announced. That would be pretty interesting to see :)
- agloeregrets 7y agoI saw the same for Gap inc for a list of in-store purchases at Old Navy. Incredibly on the nose about how screwed privacy is going to be soon.
- spunker540 7y agoIt’s not a situation where FB “managed to obtain”. It’s Macy’s directly uploading transactions in order to attribute purchases to their online ad campaigns. It uses email and name etc to match.
- btrautsc 7y agoI agree. While its easy to point at Facebook and say "they are so creepy" - this sounds like the type of challenge every marketing department faces. "What is the attribution of X,Y,Z ad campaigns?" Connecting purchase + email + 'where the ad happened' via social solves that.
- pjc50 7y ago"Attribution" in this sense is always going to be the enemy of privacy, because it boils down to the question of "what was on your screen when you decided to make this purchase".
- geofft 7y ago> While its easy to point at Facebook and say "they are so creepy" - this sounds like the type of challenge every marketing department faces. "What is the attribution of X,Y,Z ad campaigns?" That can still be creepy. (If you're meaning that the accusation of "creepy" should be directed at modern marketing in general and not just Facebook, yes, I'd agree with that, though a good part of how we got here is large centralized aggregators like Facebook.) I think there are plenty of non-advertising contexts where "using people's data to influence their behavior more effectively" can easily cross from normal to creepy as you start collecting more data. If you give your SO a certain flower because you remember a conversation the two of you had a while ago about that flower, that's normal and even thoughtful. If you give your SO a certain flower because you hired people to follow them before you even started dating and you got a report that they always stopped to admire a certain flower on their walk to work, that's creepy.
- AlexandrB 7y agoEvery profession has challenges. Most of them don’t resort to violating the rights of others to solve those challenges.
- mtgx 7y agoRemember all of those times Facebook was telling us it doesn't "sell" our data to other companies? Technically true, it was merely "bartering" our data (exchanging its users' data to data from other data brokers, large companies like Macy's, and many of the phone manufacturers that pre-install the Facebook app). In other words, a distinction without a difference.
- mlb_hn 7y agoHere's Facebook's business help link for how to upload and use point of sale and other offline data: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1142103235885551?id=565900110447546 https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1142103235885551?id=5...
- papln 7y agoThat last part makes sense. If you want a different identity, you need to choose a different ID. Better to make you be more explicit about what you are trying to do (multiple accounts), then accidentally split accounts of people who aren't trying to do that.
- CodiePetersen 7y agoDot variations in Gmail all belong to you by default. That's a Gmail thing not a Facebook thing.