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Opt out of VISA marketing https://marketingreportoptout.visa.com/OPTOUT/request.do https://marketingreportoptout.visa.com/OPTOUT/request.do Second, disable GP

Opt out of VISA marketing https://marketingreportoptout.visa.com/OPTOUT/request.do https://marketingreportoptout.visa.com/OPTOUT/request.do Second, disable GPS, and cellphone tower ID reporting (root needed.) So Google can't correlate you with sales records. At the moment, there is no way to disable Google AGPS spying on the stock Android. Third, block Google apps from reading your IMEI/IMSI/serial number, so they can't get AGPS data from your cellphone provider if it sells it. Better, get a de-Googled ROM

machello13 6y ago
Use an iPhone?
- atat7024 6y ago
  This only works if you trust Apple instead of the firm you're running from. But it does "work". iPhone is the only phone besides a GrapheneOS phone with an intact security model worth writing about.
  - FredPret 6y ago
    Not to say that any organization (eg Apple) is trustworthy to an outsider, but at least Apple makes a lot of money upfront from the device’s price tag. Their incentive is to not annoy their rich & powerful customer base with privacy violations.
    - karmakaze 6y ago
      > Their incentive is to not annoy their [...] customer base [...] Apple knows how much they can get away with annoying, that's why they can push updates that slow down your phone, or make devices less repairable. Privacy is trickier though because it's based on trust not annoyance and it doesn't take much to lose it. I've already lost trust in Apple. What I do trust is that 'privacy' is currently working for Apple to increase their market share. It also conveniently keeps data away from competitors.
ancarda 6y ago
>VISA marketing Why is this even a thing? Maybe I should just go back to buying everything with cash, it's impossible to keep up with all the crap we need to disable or hack around
- pksadiq 6y ago
  > Why is this even a thing? Maybe I should just go back to buying everything with cash, it's impossible to keep up with all the crap we need to disable or hack around And some agencies may be more interested in these exclusion databases. So I don't think there is any way to get out of this maze. When you sign up to exclude from a list, you get included in many other.
  - mulmen 6y ago
    What’s the risk here? Am I branded as a terrorist for opting out of marketing? What’s the logic?
    - corobo 6y ago
      Lists can be used for things other than terrorists
      - mulmen 6y ago
        Obviously, such as tracking who opted out of marketing based on their credit card spend. The question is what unintended (and specifically undesirable) consequences that poses to the members of the list.
- fileeditview 6y ago
  > > Visa marketing I guess this is one of the things that just has to be forbidden by law.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
murukesh_s 6y ago
Also google may read your email (if you are using gmail) - which contains your bank receipt (so seller), time and amount.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6603?hl=en https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6603?hl=en > We will not scan or read your Gmail messages to show you ads.
  - jchook 6y ago
    Not like Google has been fined unprecedentedly large sums numerous times for deceiving users and abusing their info.
  - MereInterest 6y ago
    They've also been asking for birthdays lately, obstensibly to verify age, but with the small print that it will also be used for ad targeting. But don't worry, they say, you can control how your information is used after you add it. On that page, the only option is whether to show the birthday publicly or not. There is no option to disable use for targeted advertising. Oh yeah, and Google frames asking for a birthdate as being "in order to comply with the law". They are deliberately ambiguous in order to imply that it is me who could be breaking the law, rather than Google. Also, the law only requires verifying age, and doesn't require storing the birthdate afterwards. That one is entirely on Google. So overall, my trust in anything that Google claims is rather low.
    - alisonkisk 6y ago
      You may not like the bevahior, butlt there's no indication of dishonesty there. Quite the contrary.
      - MereInterest 6y ago
        If you are referring my my description, then there absolutely is dishonesty. The notice deliberately implies (1) that is is a legal requirement on me to provide a birthday, and (2) that I can disable the use of this information for ad targeting. Neither of these is the case. Therefore, dishonesty. If you are referring to reading email for ad targeting, you are correct that dishonesty in one area doesn't necessarily imply dishonestly in another. However, it does mean that a person or entity loses the benefit of the doubt, and must have independent verification of their claims.
Hizonner 6y ago
Instead of a list of instructions, it might be nice to have details on how all the things you mention actually work...
- eurasiantiger 6y ago
  That would likely be a much lengthier post with lots of detail. So much that the extent of surveillance would be lost to the reader.
joshmn 6y ago
My initial response out loud: Holy fuck. This exists?
jeroenhd 6y ago
This is the dumbest ad strategy ever. Why on earth would ads about a product you just bought be effective marketing material. This is like how you get a million ads about dishwashers the day after you Google around and buy one. At least wait for a short duration of time to let the target run out of medicine before adversiting new stuff.
- jwmoz 6y ago
  I still get ads about leather wallets from when I was searching for one like 10 years ago.
  - 55555 6y ago
    Same, but I think it's also just that Bellroy is just a massive Display advertiser.
- newsclues 6y ago
  Brilliant if you are selling the ads.
- 55555 6y ago
  I used to think this, but people who just bought a dishwasher are probably somewhat likely to buy another dishwasher, even the same dishwasher, and there only needs to be a tiny fraction of a single percentage chance for it to be worth showing an ad impression.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
    Presumably even for that tiny fraction of people who buy a dishwasher right after buying a dishwasher there must be a limit to how many times they will repeat the cycle, otherwise ... well, we can imagine the planet Earth completely covered in dishwashers and somewhere under the mass of white cubes, a constant mouse clicking sound and a cry of anguish... Must. BUY. M O R E <clickclickclickclick>.
    - 6y ago
YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
Even better: flush your smartphone down the toilet. I mean, if you have to try and double-guess your phone to make sure it's not spying on you the game is lost. I don't even know what game that is. But it's lost.
- dkdk8283 6y ago
  Get a landline and answering machine. Receive only pager while on the go.
  - klyrs 6y ago
    Pagers are rather famously unencrypted, and a hospital near you is almost certainly broadcasting personal and identifying information about patients right now, in the plain, and you can easily pick it up with an SDR.
- fsflover 6y ago
  Or replace your phone with a one you can trust (Linux phone).
  - NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
    https://calyxos.org/ https://calyxos.org/ and https://grapheneos.org/ https://grapheneos.org/ both go part of the way. They're hardened, privacy-preserving Android flavors that work best on Google Pixel 3 - 5. CalyxOS emulates google services so you can use basically any Android app, while GrapheneOS goes further down the security hardening hole.
  - dkdk8283 6y ago
    You still can’t trust the baseband blob which has DMA access on most devices.
    - fsflover 6y ago
      These two devices do not have DMA access (and also have killswitches): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PinePhone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PinePhone.
briandear 6y ago
Or better yet, use an iPhone. Then you can use your GPS.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
durnygbur 6y ago
> Opt out of VISA marketing > U.S cardholders may opt out of Visa using their card transaction data for VAS, a suite of aggregated data products in the United States. So while outside of US, I don't get the perks like cashabacks and no privacy either!
II2II 6y ago
> Better, get a de-Googled ROM If you have the patience and knowledge, I can't recommend this enough. If you don't have the patience and the knowledge, this is a good way to end up with a non-functioning phone. (It will probably be recoverable, provided that you have the patience to acquire that knowledge and don't mind being without a phone in the meantime.) When I say I can't recommend it enough, I mean it. I have been okay with simply disabling Google services for the past few years, yet Google seems to be embedding their services deeply in applications like Phone, Messages, Contacts, and Files. It is at the point where these applications would throw up a stream of notifications when Google services were disabled on Android 10. Even though they appeared to be usable, they are clearly trying to annoy people into re-enabling Google services.
- lorentztt 6y ago
  Which one do you use/recommend?
  - crocodiletears 6y ago
    I personally use a Pixel 3 running Grapheneos. You need a non-Verizon version of the device to do so, but there are services out there that'll hunt the devices down and even install the OS for you if you lack the time/patience https://grapheneos.org/ https://grapheneos.org/ https://noagendaphone.com/ https://noagendaphone.com/
  - II2II 6y ago
    It depends upon what is available for your device and what you want out of the firmware. What I will suggest is looking at the device specific forums at XDA. You will get an idea of what is available and what is reliable. Personally, I shy away from distributions that don't include a "what works" and "what doesn't work" section in the first post. I also prefer "official" distributions. At the very least, it is easier to track updates. The next filter I use is feature based. In this context, look for distributions that don't include Gapps and offer additional privacy enhancing features. Once you have something that you think you want, read the thread for the distribution. It often reveals pitfalls, variations within the model, and variations between carriers. These pitfalls exist even with the popular distributions, which is another reason to check out the forums. I went with OmniROM this time around, but I have been happy with Resurrection Remix on other devices. Some devices have nice alternatives that are specific to them. As an example, I use KatKiss on the Asus TF300T. For a while, it was running a more recent version of Android than my much newer phone!
dessant 6y ago
Are you saying that Google collects and uploads your location data (GPS and cellphone tower ID), despite opting out of data collection on Android?
geofft 6y ago
The first one seems most likely to be the relevant answer to how this was tracked: https://adwords.googleblog.com/2017/05/powering-ads-and-analytics-innovations.html https://adwords.googleblog.com/2017/05/powering-ads-and-anal... > Google’s third-party partnerships ... capture approximately 70% of credit and debit card transactions in the United States See also https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-and-mastercard-cut-a-secret-ad-deal-to-track-retail-sales https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-an... and https://www.technologyreview.com/2017/05/25/242717/google-now-tracks-your-credit-card-purchases-and-connects-them-to-its-online-profile-of-you/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2017/05/25/242717/google-no... - Google has deals with the credit card providers to get purchase data so they can link them back to your online behavior.
- rightbyte 6y ago
  And people still think Google et al. eavesdropping peoples homes is tinfoil hat level ...
jorvi 6y ago
> Better, get a de-Googled ROM Which means no push, breaking an absurd amount of apps.
throwaway823882 6y ago
Holy shit, what a great phishing tool. Send people an e-mail to opt out of Visa Marketing at a vaguely long/confusing URL and ask for their CC# and PIN. The fact that this site is real makes it more convincing.
barbazoo 6y ago
I might be naive but I don't see how the CC company would have the list of items you purchased.
- tpxl 6y ago
  Technically the system is designed such that the CC company knows nothing of the receipt and the merchant knows nothing of the buyer. If you're using a store card, the merchant == the CC company and so knows everything about you anyways. If you're not using the store card, the merchant probably has an agreement with the CC company to share the information, so the technical implementation is irrelevant.
soared 6y ago
Visa doesn’t build audiences for item-level data. I used to build these audiences at oracle (there are other posts in my history about visa audiences). Geolocation is not very accurate from gps, so unless the store was off in a field by itself that’s not what happened here. The only real way to avoid this happening would be to use a new credit card for each purchase, with a fake name/billing address.
GekkePrutser 6y ago
Interesting one! But this is only for US. Is there something similar for Europe? (And for Mastercard as this is what my bank uses for my debit card)
guuggye 6y ago
https://bb.visa.com/legal/privacy-policy-opt-out.html https://bb.visa.com/legal/privacy-policy-opt-out.html
anigbrowl 6y ago
All valid suggestions, but at the same time the burden of this ought not to fall on the consumer. Additionally, even though a small number of individuals may have the motivation and technical ability to opt out of everything, they're still trapped by the network effect of everyone else doing it.
Havoc 6y ago
Is there an intl equivalent?
MikeUt 6y ago
> disable GPS Is there no way to get GPS location, without sending it to Google? As I understand, GPS positioning does not require the phone to send any data?

machello13 6y ago

Use an iPhone?

atat7024 6y ago
This only works if you trust Apple instead of the firm you're running from. But it does "work". iPhone is the only phone besides a GrapheneOS phone with an intact security model worth writing about.
- FredPret 6y ago
  Not to say that any organization (eg Apple) is trustworthy to an outsider, but at least Apple makes a lot of money upfront from the device’s price tag. Their incentive is to not annoy their rich & powerful customer base with privacy violations.
  - karmakaze 6y ago
    > Their incentive is to not annoy their [...] customer base [...] Apple knows how much they can get away with annoying, that's why they can push updates that slow down your phone, or make devices less repairable. Privacy is trickier though because it's based on trust not annoyance and it doesn't take much to lose it. I've already lost trust in Apple. What I do trust is that 'privacy' is currently working for Apple to increase their market share. It also conveniently keeps data away from competitors.

ancarda 6y ago

>VISA marketing Why is this even a thing? Maybe I should just go back to buying everything with cash, it's impossible to keep up with all the crap we need to disable or hack around

pksadiq 6y ago
> Why is this even a thing? Maybe I should just go back to buying everything with cash, it's impossible to keep up with all the crap we need to disable or hack around And some agencies may be more interested in these exclusion databases. So I don't think there is any way to get out of this maze. When you sign up to exclude from a list, you get included in many other.
- mulmen 6y ago
  What’s the risk here? Am I branded as a terrorist for opting out of marketing? What’s the logic?
  - corobo 6y ago
    Lists can be used for things other than terrorists
    - mulmen 6y ago
      Obviously, such as tracking who opted out of marketing based on their credit card spend. The question is what unintended (and specifically undesirable) consequences that poses to the members of the list.
fileeditview 6y ago
> > Visa marketing I guess this is one of the things that just has to be forbidden by law.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

murukesh_s 6y ago

Also google may read your email (if you are using gmail) - which contains your bank receipt (so seller), time and amount.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6603?hl=en https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6603?hl=en > We will not scan or read your Gmail messages to show you ads.
- jchook 6y ago
  Not like Google has been fined unprecedentedly large sums numerous times for deceiving users and abusing their info.
- MereInterest 6y ago
  They've also been asking for birthdays lately, obstensibly to verify age, but with the small print that it will also be used for ad targeting. But don't worry, they say, you can control how your information is used after you add it. On that page, the only option is whether to show the birthday publicly or not. There is no option to disable use for targeted advertising. Oh yeah, and Google frames asking for a birthdate as being "in order to comply with the law". They are deliberately ambiguous in order to imply that it is me who could be breaking the law, rather than Google. Also, the law only requires verifying age, and doesn't require storing the birthdate afterwards. That one is entirely on Google. So overall, my trust in anything that Google claims is rather low.
  - alisonkisk 6y ago
    You may not like the bevahior, butlt there's no indication of dishonesty there. Quite the contrary.
    - MereInterest 6y ago
      If you are referring my my description, then there absolutely is dishonesty. The notice deliberately implies (1) that is is a legal requirement on me to provide a birthday, and (2) that I can disable the use of this information for ad targeting. Neither of these is the case. Therefore, dishonesty. If you are referring to reading email for ad targeting, you are correct that dishonesty in one area doesn't necessarily imply dishonestly in another. However, it does mean that a person or entity loses the benefit of the doubt, and must have independent verification of their claims.

Hizonner 6y ago

Instead of a list of instructions, it might be nice to have details on how all the things you mention actually work...

eurasiantiger 6y ago
That would likely be a much lengthier post with lots of detail. So much that the extent of surveillance would be lost to the reader.

joshmn 6y ago

My initial response out loud: Holy fuck. This exists?

jeroenhd 6y ago

This is the dumbest ad strategy ever. Why on earth would ads about a product you just bought be effective marketing material. This is like how you get a million ads about dishwashers the day after you Google around and buy one. At least wait for a short duration of time to let the target run out of medicine before adversiting new stuff.

jwmoz 6y ago
I still get ads about leather wallets from when I was searching for one like 10 years ago.
- 55555 6y ago
  Same, but I think it's also just that Bellroy is just a massive Display advertiser.
newsclues 6y ago
Brilliant if you are selling the ads.
55555 6y ago
I used to think this, but people who just bought a dishwasher are probably somewhat likely to buy another dishwasher, even the same dishwasher, and there only needs to be a tiny fraction of a single percentage chance for it to be worth showing an ad impression.
- YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
  Presumably even for that tiny fraction of people who buy a dishwasher right after buying a dishwasher there must be a limit to how many times they will repeat the cycle, otherwise ... well, we can imagine the planet Earth completely covered in dishwashers and somewhere under the mass of white cubes, a constant mouse clicking sound and a cry of anguish... Must. BUY. M O R E <clickclickclickclick>.
  - 6y ago

YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago

Even better: flush your smartphone down the toilet. I mean, if you have to try and double-guess your phone to make sure it's not spying on you the game is lost. I don't even know what game that is. But it's lost.

dkdk8283 6y ago
Get a landline and answering machine. Receive only pager while on the go.
- klyrs 6y ago
  Pagers are rather famously unencrypted, and a hospital near you is almost certainly broadcasting personal and identifying information about patients right now, in the plain, and you can easily pick it up with an SDR.
fsflover 6y ago
Or replace your phone with a one you can trust (Linux phone).
- NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
  https://calyxos.org/ https://calyxos.org/ and https://grapheneos.org/ https://grapheneos.org/ both go part of the way. They're hardened, privacy-preserving Android flavors that work best on Google Pixel 3 - 5. CalyxOS emulates google services so you can use basically any Android app, while GrapheneOS goes further down the security hardening hole.
- dkdk8283 6y ago
  You still can’t trust the baseband blob which has DMA access on most devices.
  - fsflover 6y ago
    These two devices do not have DMA access (and also have killswitches): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PinePhone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PinePhone.

briandear 6y ago

Or better yet, use an iPhone. Then you can use your GPS.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

durnygbur 6y ago

> Opt out of VISA marketing > U.S cardholders may opt out of Visa using their card transaction data for VAS, a suite of aggregated data products in the United States. So while outside of US, I don't get the perks like cashabacks and no privacy either!

II2II 6y ago

> Better, get a de-Googled ROM If you have the patience and knowledge, I can't recommend this enough. If you don't have the patience and the knowledge, this is a good way to end up with a non-functioning phone. (It will probably be recoverable, provided that you have the patience to acquire that knowledge and don't mind being without a phone in the meantime.) When I say I can't recommend it enough, I mean it. I have been okay with simply disabling Google services for the past few years, yet Google seems to be embedding their services deeply in applications like Phone, Messages, Contacts, and Files. It is at the point where these applications would throw up a stream of notifications when Google services were disabled on Android 10. Even though they appeared to be usable, they are clearly trying to annoy people into re-enabling Google services.

lorentztt 6y ago
Which one do you use/recommend?
- crocodiletears 6y ago
  I personally use a Pixel 3 running Grapheneos. You need a non-Verizon version of the device to do so, but there are services out there that'll hunt the devices down and even install the OS for you if you lack the time/patience https://grapheneos.org/ https://grapheneos.org/ https://noagendaphone.com/ https://noagendaphone.com/
- II2II 6y ago
  It depends upon what is available for your device and what you want out of the firmware. What I will suggest is looking at the device specific forums at XDA. You will get an idea of what is available and what is reliable. Personally, I shy away from distributions that don't include a "what works" and "what doesn't work" section in the first post. I also prefer "official" distributions. At the very least, it is easier to track updates. The next filter I use is feature based. In this context, look for distributions that don't include Gapps and offer additional privacy enhancing features. Once you have something that you think you want, read the thread for the distribution. It often reveals pitfalls, variations within the model, and variations between carriers. These pitfalls exist even with the popular distributions, which is another reason to check out the forums. I went with OmniROM this time around, but I have been happy with Resurrection Remix on other devices. Some devices have nice alternatives that are specific to them. As an example, I use KatKiss on the Asus TF300T. For a while, it was running a more recent version of Android than my much newer phone!

dessant 6y ago

Are you saying that Google collects and uploads your location data (GPS and cellphone tower ID), despite opting out of data collection on Android?

geofft 6y ago

The first one seems most likely to be the relevant answer to how this was tracked: https://adwords.googleblog.com/2017/05/powering-ads-and-analytics-innovations.html https://adwords.googleblog.com/2017/05/powering-ads-and-anal... > Google’s third-party partnerships ... capture approximately 70% of credit and debit card transactions in the United States See also https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-and-mastercard-cut-a-secret-ad-deal-to-track-retail-sales https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-an... and https://www.technologyreview.com/2017/05/25/242717/google-now-tracks-your-credit-card-purchases-and-connects-them-to-its-online-profile-of-you/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2017/05/25/242717/google-no... - Google has deals with the credit card providers to get purchase data so they can link them back to your online behavior.

rightbyte 6y ago
And people still think Google et al. eavesdropping peoples homes is tinfoil hat level ...

jorvi 6y ago

> Better, get a de-Googled ROM Which means no push, breaking an absurd amount of apps.

throwaway823882 6y ago

Holy shit, what a great phishing tool. Send people an e-mail to opt out of Visa Marketing at a vaguely long/confusing URL and ask for their CC# and PIN. The fact that this site is real makes it more convincing.

barbazoo 6y ago

I might be naive but I don't see how the CC company would have the list of items you purchased.

tpxl 6y ago
Technically the system is designed such that the CC company knows nothing of the receipt and the merchant knows nothing of the buyer. If you're using a store card, the merchant == the CC company and so knows everything about you anyways. If you're not using the store card, the merchant probably has an agreement with the CC company to share the information, so the technical implementation is irrelevant.

soared 6y ago

Visa doesn’t build audiences for item-level data. I used to build these audiences at oracle (there are other posts in my history about visa audiences). Geolocation is not very accurate from gps, so unless the store was off in a field by itself that’s not what happened here. The only real way to avoid this happening would be to use a new credit card for each purchase, with a fake name/billing address.

GekkePrutser 6y ago

Interesting one! But this is only for US. Is there something similar for Europe? (And for Mastercard as this is what my bank uses for my debit card)

guuggye 6y ago

https://bb.visa.com/legal/privacy-policy-opt-out.html https://bb.visa.com/legal/privacy-policy-opt-out.html

anigbrowl 6y ago

All valid suggestions, but at the same time the burden of this ought not to fall on the consumer. Additionally, even though a small number of individuals may have the motivation and technical ability to opt out of everything, they're still trapped by the network effect of everyone else doing it.

Havoc 6y ago

Is there an intl equivalent?

MikeUt 6y ago

> disable GPS Is there no way to get GPS location, without sending it to Google? As I understand, GPS positioning does not require the phone to send any data?