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> The store (Amazon) will know your change of behavior and use that to bombard you with baby clothes advertisements. Targeted advertising is innocuous compared

by dahart 4y ago

> The store (Amazon) will know your change of behavior and use that to bombard you with baby clothes advertisements. Targeted advertising is innocuous compared to some of the ways your shopping history could be used against you. Imagine if health insurance companies could decline claims based on too many purchases of pizza and beer over the years. I thought this was supposed to be illegal, and I don’t know which laws apply now or have in the past, but ~20 years ago I did hear from a friend who worked in the credit card industry that he had seen this kind of thing happening. Has left me with nagging fears ever since. (I guess I should find out more so I’m not just spreading FUD :P)

dredmorbius 4y ago
A friend worked for a Big River merchandiser. In their fraud department. As a software developer, part of that involved undergoing private investigator training. It also involved utilising various consumer information databases. The story I heard involved looking up an ex and seeing what kind of information was available. Not merely card balances and net purchases, but line-item detail. This was in the early aughts. Which means that practices may have changed, but also that there is now vastly more information available. Firms are not monoliths. There have been multiple instances of line workers, managers, and/or contractors whose interests have diverged from the firm's. A number of eBay executives were convicted and sentenced to prison for harassing a couple whose newsletter the execs disliked (2022): <https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/29/tech/ebay-exec-jail-harassment/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/29/tech/ebay-exec-jail-harassmen...> External hackers, thought to be from China, hacked Gmail largely seeking information on Chinese dissidents and Tibetian activists (2015): <https://www.foxnews.com/tech/gmail-accounts-compromised-by-chinese-hackers-google-says https://www.foxnews.com/tech/gmail-accounts-compromised-by-c...> A former Twitter employee was charged with spying for Saudi Arabia (2019): <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/06/twitter-spy-saudi-arabia-workers-charged https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/06/twitter-s...> And six Amazon employees were indicted for accepting bribes on behalf of sellers to distort the Amazon marketplace (2020): <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/09/doj-amazon-workers-took-bribes-to-reinstate-sellers-of-dangerous-products/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/09/doj-amazon-worke...> So far as keeping contractors in line, even the NSA and CIA have had problems on that front --- Snowden and Winner, notably. Let alone their own staff (many cases of moles and foreign agents).

by dahart 4y ago

dredmorbius 4y ago

A friend worked for a Big River merchandiser. In their fraud department. As a software developer, part of that involved undergoing private investigator training. It also involved utilising various consumer information databases. The story I heard involved looking up an ex and seeing what kind of information was available. Not merely card balances and net purchases, but line-item detail. This was in the early aughts. Which means that practices may have changed, but also that there is now vastly more information available. Firms are not monoliths. There have been multiple instances of line workers, managers, and/or contractors whose interests have diverged from the firm's. A number of eBay executives were convicted and sentenced to prison for harassing a couple whose newsletter the execs disliked (2022): <https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/29/tech/ebay-exec-jail-harassment/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/29/tech/ebay-exec-jail-harassmen...> External hackers, thought to be from China, hacked Gmail largely seeking information on Chinese dissidents and Tibetian activists (2015): <https://www.foxnews.com/tech/gmail-accounts-compromised-by-chinese-hackers-google-says https://www.foxnews.com/tech/gmail-accounts-compromised-by-c...> A former Twitter employee was charged with spying for Saudi Arabia (2019): <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/06/twitter-spy-saudi-arabia-workers-charged https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/06/twitter-s...> And six Amazon employees were indicted for accepting bribes on behalf of sellers to distort the Amazon marketplace (2020): <https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/09/doj-amazon-workers-took-bribes-to-reinstate-sellers-of-dangerous-products/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/09/doj-amazon-worke...> So far as keeping contractors in line, even the NSA and CIA have had problems on that front --- Snowden and Winner, notably. Let alone their own staff (many cases of moles and foreign agents).