14 ms·

The Google Wallet, a lifetime log of your purchases

71 points by ZeroMinx 15y ago

revorad 15y ago
This made me realise there should be a service which translates Terms of Service documents to human-readable bullet-points. Most people, myself included, are unlikely to start reading these annoying documents, but if there was a place which highlighted important aspects (like the OP does), then we are much more likely to pay attention. YC-funded MarketBrief is doing this for SEC documents. Is there anything that does it for ToS?
- 0x12 15y ago
  That's a great idea, terms of services for users instead of for lawyers.
- muro 15y ago
  + there should be the same for laws.
- fbnt 15y ago
  Iubenda
  - revorad 15y ago
    That's a privacy policy generator, not analyser.
    - fbnt 15y ago
      I misread, my bad.
- phpnode 15y ago
  i think this is an AI-complete problem. Lawyers write contracts in legalese not because they love obfuscation (although some clearly do), but because it is basically a DSL that tries to represent a set of terms in the least ambiguous way possible. To translate these documents into simpler language would require the translator (human or machine) to have a proper understanding of the content being translated, hence AI-complete. Also, the newly simplified contract would be a separate entity from the original contract, and therefore could be interpreted differently by a court. Anyone attempting to do this is opening themselves up to all sorts of horrible litigation
  - revorad 15y ago
    Those are good points, but do you think MarketBrief is solving an AI-complete problem? There must be low-tech, semi-automated, crowdsourced solutions to this problem. The legal implications might be a problem, but maybe a community site with clear disclaimers can avoid any trouble. Even highlighting or extracting key parts of the original document would be useful.
    - phpnode 15y ago
      no, as far as I can tell MarketBrief is a different thing entirely: they're generating their content from statistics, not by comprehending and rewriting existing texts. I think the essence is this - you can probably summarize these contracts and highlight important clauses with a crowd sourced solution as you suggest, but these summaries are just an interpretation of the contract, they can't replace the real thing.
      - mcherm 15y ago
        Nevertheless, a summary of the important points in the agreements would be EXTREMELY useful to me. Unless I go to court I probably don't care whether it is the law or the law AND the arbitration that is based on the legal framework of California USA. But I do care whether or not there is a clause that says "You Can't Sue Us" in one language or another.
- arethuza 15y ago
  What about an application that provides a means of annotating ToS documents with comments explaining what parts actually mean to non-lawyers?
  - Symmetry 15y ago
    You can't include commentary on the ToS without them becoming part of the ToS, and thus changing the legal meaning of the ToS.
    - jambo 15y ago
      The parties to the Terms of Service can't, but a third party could offer a non-binding interpretation.
      - Symmetry 15y ago
        Right. I was thinking of this being one on the service provider's behalf, but re-reading that wasn't actually what the intent was.
jrockway 15y ago
So let's say everyone on earth gets my search history and purchase history. What bad things will happen to me?
- thaumaturgy 15y ago
  It's interesting, isn't it? Not very long ago, it was important to people to maintain certain kinds of privacy, a "healthy paranoia", a division between the lives they led at work and at home and elsewhere. Now, there are a lot of people asking that same question: so what if an advertiser knows more about my habits than I do? So what if someone from work sees my vacation photos? And, maybe, if everyone sort of agrees that all this is OK, then it really will be. Some people are still clinging on to their healthy paranoia, though. I don't trust any company, large or small, not to harm me if it suits their bottom line -- even if I'm not imaginative enough to guess how they might do that.
  - swombat 15y ago
    That works just fine until a totalitarian government takes power. See my other comment for details...
    - Symmetry 15y ago
      Isn't the fact that more people have more to lose in the event of totalitarianism sort of a good thing, in that it makes totalitarianism less likely?
      - pavel_lishin 15y ago
        Are you certain that it makes totalitarianism less likely?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - netcan 15y ago
    In fact, maybe this separation between work "you," private "you" and other yous is a problem.
ristretto 15y ago
Credit card issuers have access to this information for years, right? I suppose there will be some relevant legislation somewhere. Google is bound to be doing this on a very large scale though and i m pretty sure these terms are already violating privacy laws in certain countries. It is one thing to use the search data, because it involves just Google, so at least you know your private info is not spilled over. Using data from merchants is a whole different thing. Actually i m pretty sure many merchants will frown upon the fact that google knows what their customers are buying (thus potentially leading them to competitors and breaching buyer's trust).
sschueller 15y ago
How long does a credit card company keep your purchase history and do they keep it private?
- rjd 15y ago
  No they sell the information but its anonymised I believe. They'd keep it what ever the legal requirement is per country, after they have sold it I doubt there much reason to hold it.
  - woodson 15y ago
    Sell it to another party, maybe?
daimyoyo 15y ago
While this explains why Google wants in the payments business, I refuse to do anything more with Google than search and email. I am just not comfortable with one company knowing that much about me.
- RyanKearney 15y ago
  If you use them for email then they already know much more about you than you think. What's the difference between Google and Master Card knowing your purchases? Unless you cash your paychecks every week and only spend cash then a company still knows everything you purchase.
- mrich 15y ago
  It could be argued that this represents 80% of your life already. How often do you discuss new things you bought with friends? Quite often probably, except for some things which are very private. But even some of them can be inferred from your searches (e.g. for medications). The question is, how much (technological) effort is Google willing to throw at this problem to find out this much about you. (In the same vein, I am often wondering whether Google has some special APIs for governments which allow for some deep data mining of their data for special fees. But perhaps that's just me being overly paranoid.)
- uptown 15y ago
  "I refuse to do anything more with Google than search and email. I am just not comfortable with one company knowing that much about me." In that case, you'd better install some browser extensions to block Google Analytics. They could correlate the IP address from your email and search with your visits to every website using Google Analytics for metrics and extrapolate more about your from there.
  - thematt 15y ago
    Ghostery is a good choice: http://www.ghostery.com/ http://www.ghostery.com/
chrischen 15y ago
Wouldn't the privacy issue be an issue only if it was forced on us? I assume you'd still have the option of hiding purchases from Google by not using the service.
suking 15y ago
Just what I thought google should know. I felt like they don't already have enough data - I hope I can input my CC number and google wallet will decide what I need for me and just buy it. Living the dream...
T_S_ 15y ago
Most people here are assuming that Google will have the line items on your receipt. Credit card companies normally do NOT get that information. It takes extra work for the merchant to provide it. The top line data is both less intrusive and less useful. Does anybody here actually know what data Google will be collecting?

71 points by ZeroMinx 15y ago

This made me realise there should be a service which translates Terms of Service documents to human-readable bullet-points. Most people, myself included, are unlikely to start reading these annoying documents, but if there was a place which highlighted important aspects (like the OP does), then we are much more likely to pay attention. YC-funded MarketBrief is doing this for SEC documents. Is there anything that does it for ToS?

0x12 15y ago
That's a great idea, terms of services for users instead of for lawyers.
muro 15y ago
+ there should be the same for laws.
fbnt 15y ago
Iubenda
- revorad 15y ago
  That's a privacy policy generator, not analyser.
  - fbnt 15y ago
    I misread, my bad.
phpnode 15y ago
i think this is an AI-complete problem. Lawyers write contracts in legalese not because they love obfuscation (although some clearly do), but because it is basically a DSL that tries to represent a set of terms in the least ambiguous way possible. To translate these documents into simpler language would require the translator (human or machine) to have a proper understanding of the content being translated, hence AI-complete. Also, the newly simplified contract would be a separate entity from the original contract, and therefore could be interpreted differently by a court. Anyone attempting to do this is opening themselves up to all sorts of horrible litigation
- revorad 15y ago
  Those are good points, but do you think MarketBrief is solving an AI-complete problem? There must be low-tech, semi-automated, crowdsourced solutions to this problem. The legal implications might be a problem, but maybe a community site with clear disclaimers can avoid any trouble. Even highlighting or extracting key parts of the original document would be useful.
  - phpnode 15y ago
    no, as far as I can tell MarketBrief is a different thing entirely: they're generating their content from statistics, not by comprehending and rewriting existing texts. I think the essence is this - you can probably summarize these contracts and highlight important clauses with a crowd sourced solution as you suggest, but these summaries are just an interpretation of the contract, they can't replace the real thing.
    - mcherm 15y ago
      Nevertheless, a summary of the important points in the agreements would be EXTREMELY useful to me. Unless I go to court I probably don't care whether it is the law or the law AND the arbitration that is based on the legal framework of California USA. But I do care whether or not there is a clause that says "You Can't Sue Us" in one language or another.
arethuza 15y ago
What about an application that provides a means of annotating ToS documents with comments explaining what parts actually mean to non-lawyers?
- Symmetry 15y ago
  You can't include commentary on the ToS without them becoming part of the ToS, and thus changing the legal meaning of the ToS.
  - jambo 15y ago
    The parties to the Terms of Service can't, but a third party could offer a non-binding interpretation.
    - Symmetry 15y ago
      Right. I was thinking of this being one on the service provider's behalf, but re-reading that wasn't actually what the intent was.

jrockway 15y ago

So let's say everyone on earth gets my search history and purchase history. What bad things will happen to me?

thaumaturgy 15y ago
It's interesting, isn't it? Not very long ago, it was important to people to maintain certain kinds of privacy, a "healthy paranoia", a division between the lives they led at work and at home and elsewhere. Now, there are a lot of people asking that same question: so what if an advertiser knows more about my habits than I do? So what if someone from work sees my vacation photos? And, maybe, if everyone sort of agrees that all this is OK, then it really will be. Some people are still clinging on to their healthy paranoia, though. I don't trust any company, large or small, not to harm me if it suits their bottom line -- even if I'm not imaginative enough to guess how they might do that.
- swombat 15y ago
  That works just fine until a totalitarian government takes power. See my other comment for details...
  - Symmetry 15y ago
    Isn't the fact that more people have more to lose in the event of totalitarianism sort of a good thing, in that it makes totalitarianism less likely?
    - pavel_lishin 15y ago
      Are you certain that it makes totalitarianism less likely?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- netcan 15y ago
  In fact, maybe this separation between work "you," private "you" and other yous is a problem.

ristretto 15y ago

Credit card issuers have access to this information for years, right? I suppose there will be some relevant legislation somewhere. Google is bound to be doing this on a very large scale though and i m pretty sure these terms are already violating privacy laws in certain countries. It is one thing to use the search data, because it involves just Google, so at least you know your private info is not spilled over. Using data from merchants is a whole different thing. Actually i m pretty sure many merchants will frown upon the fact that google knows what their customers are buying (thus potentially leading them to competitors and breaching buyer's trust).

sschueller 15y ago

How long does a credit card company keep your purchase history and do they keep it private?

rjd 15y ago
No they sell the information but its anonymised I believe. They'd keep it what ever the legal requirement is per country, after they have sold it I doubt there much reason to hold it.
- woodson 15y ago
  Sell it to another party, maybe?

daimyoyo 15y ago

While this explains why Google wants in the payments business, I refuse to do anything more with Google than search and email. I am just not comfortable with one company knowing that much about me.

RyanKearney 15y ago
If you use them for email then they already know much more about you than you think. What's the difference between Google and Master Card knowing your purchases? Unless you cash your paychecks every week and only spend cash then a company still knows everything you purchase.
mrich 15y ago
It could be argued that this represents 80% of your life already. How often do you discuss new things you bought with friends? Quite often probably, except for some things which are very private. But even some of them can be inferred from your searches (e.g. for medications). The question is, how much (technological) effort is Google willing to throw at this problem to find out this much about you. (In the same vein, I am often wondering whether Google has some special APIs for governments which allow for some deep data mining of their data for special fees. But perhaps that's just me being overly paranoid.)
uptown 15y ago
"I refuse to do anything more with Google than search and email. I am just not comfortable with one company knowing that much about me." In that case, you'd better install some browser extensions to block Google Analytics. They could correlate the IP address from your email and search with your visits to every website using Google Analytics for metrics and extrapolate more about your from there.
- thematt 15y ago
  Ghostery is a good choice: http://www.ghostery.com/ http://www.ghostery.com/

chrischen 15y ago

Wouldn't the privacy issue be an issue only if it was forced on us? I assume you'd still have the option of hiding purchases from Google by not using the service.

suking 15y ago

Just what I thought google should know. I felt like they don't already have enough data - I hope I can input my CC number and google wallet will decide what I need for me and just buy it. Living the dream...

T_S_ 15y ago

Most people here are assuming that Google will have the line items on your receipt. Credit card companies normally do NOT get that information. It takes extra work for the merchant to provide it. The top line data is both less intrusive and less useful. Does anybody here actually know what data Google will be collecting?