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Not coincidence. Not "bank purchase history" shared with google- in most cases banks and credit cards don't know item level detail. Lots of ways this data flow
by jonahbenton 6y ago
Not coincidence. Not "bank purchase history" shared with google- in most cases banks and credit cards don't know item level detail.
Lots of ways this data flow could happen, at least in the US. Happy to go through specific details I have seen if you want to share more about this, but two high level points
1. Remember that when you purchase something, the data about the purchase is BOTH yours AND the entity from whom you made the purchase. Most of those entities have data sharing agreements of various kinds for all sorts of legitimate business reasons
2. It isn't google who knows about the purchase, and even the advertiser doesn't "know" you made a purchase. Advertising is zillions of two sided marketplaces, with an enormous ecosystem of data packagers and conveyers and linkers, with lots of concern about recency and freshness of data. Your purchase landed some key about you in a bucket that was mixed and repackaged with many other keys that the advertiser knows as "keys recently interested in Voltaren." Some of those keys are related to people who bought it, or who searched for it, or more indirectly who lingered while reading a page with an ad for it...and in most cases are very short lived. So give it a few weeks and many of those buckets of keys will have been completely remade.
- dantyti 6y agoplease do go into detail about how data about an exact goods purchase that is linked to a specific person (ignoring the bunk about 'anonymization') can be regarded as having a legitimate business reason
- rovr138 6y agoMarketing is a legitimate business reason. Other example, In the US, lots of jurisdictions have restrictions on ingredients. For example, dextromethorphan and pseudoephedrine. If you are buying over the counter medicines that contain these, in some jurisdictions, you need to provide an ID.
- inetknght 6y ago> Marketing is a legitimate business reason. Pervasive targeted marketing is not a legitimate business reason.
- edoceo 6y agoits legitimate. distasteful but legitimate.
- inetknght 6y agoThe word you're looking for is "legal". It's legal. It's illegitimate but legal.
- CamelCaseName 6y agoThe first three results on Google show the definition of legitimate as "allowed by law". If you want to make a moral argument for why it shouldn't be allowed, then do that.
- spoonjim 6y agoThe etymology of “legitimate” and “legal” are shared but they have very different meanings. If you are not a native speaker of English then these connotations can be hard to discern since word meanings are fluid and regional, but at least in the US the meanings are quite different.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- anigbrowl 6y agoIt's legal, but not necessarily legitimate. Informally, people use the latter terms to articulate their view of what the law should be, rather than what it is.
- edoceo 6y ago
- continuations 6y agoHow does Google link the real life person who bought Voltaren at a store to the online account or fingerprint that browses the Internet?
- vbsteven 6y agoI don’t think Google linked the account directly to the purchase. My guess would be that Google linked the account to the medication based on patterns from one of its many ways it gathers data. * visits to websites about that medication * visits to websites talking about symptoms for which the medication helps * searches for the above * I would not be surprised if Google picks up interests from other accounts using the same WiFi (or even other devices on close proximity) * there are some scary stories about Google/FB/Amazon listening to conversations
- whimsicalism 6y agoSo, then, completely different from what the GP suggested.
- vbsteven 6y agoMy comment was an expansion on GPs second bullet point. It’s not Google that knows about the purchase, but Google that “somehow” picked up contextual info from OPs environment linking OPs online identity to Voltaren as a product. Edit: the purchase could have been involved somewhere in the chain but it’s not necessary.
- whimsicalism 6y ago> Your purchase landed some key about you in a bucket that was mixed and repackaged with many other keys that the advertiser knows as "keys recently interested in Voltaren." There's not really that much ambiguity in this sentence from the second bullet point. Unless my mental model of online advertising is wrong, your physical in-store purchase should not be landing you in some Google advertising bucket.
- otterley 6y agoIn the US, you can’t use personal health information for marketing purposes. If you can prove this link, a lot of very large organizations could potentially be in serious trouble for HIPAA violations. https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/guidance/marketing/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/guidance...
- newsbinator 6y agoIs there a feasible way to prove this link?
- jimbob45 6y agoSubpoena Voltaren for documents? I don’t know that there really is.
- aplummer 6y agoThe shop part (non-pharmacy) of a chemist isn’t a covered entity though right, so hipaa isn’t relevant at all?
- cush 6y agoDepends which entity collected and sold the data.
- paul_f 6y agoA pharmacy is a covered entity, a retail store is not. Does not appear this falls under HIPAA
- bcrl 6y agoWhere I live in Canada, most pharmacies have a separate cash for the pharmacist and the rest of the store. I wonder if there are any differences in reporting rules for the two.
- nexuist 6y ago
- anigbrowl 6y agore 2., this is a Bad Thing. I fully agree that neither Google nor anyone at the drugstore 'knows' about the purchase, but the basic problem is that we've built a commercial marketplace that spies on people, but the information about people is treated as privileged commercial data in an automated and unaccountable marketplace.
- amelius 6y ago> Remember that when you purchase something, the data about the purchase is BOTH yours AND the entity from whom you made the purchase. This is wrong. Because in my case the information is highly personal, while in the shop owner's case it's just business information.