5 ms·

How Mastercard sells its ‘gold mine’ of transaction data

95 points by janedoegrrr 3y ago

hedora 3y ago
I remember when banks weren’t allowed to sell transaction data. I wonder if the law changed, or if the root cause of this being allowed is an enforcement / judicial issue. I also wonder if they managed to get a carve out for themselves in California’s recently-passed universal data broker opt-out law.
craighay1 3y ago
It was unclear from the article whether this applies to only credit card transactions or also Mastercard debit cards. At least it is possible to choose not to use credit cards, a bit harder with debit. I'd love to see how this data is "anonymised". On a related note, in the UK at least, all of the big supermarkets have switched their loyalty card (data harvesting schemes) from offering "points" per unit spend to offering direct large discounts on certain items in store. Makes it much more difficult to justify opting out of giving away the details of your personal shopping habits to these corporations.
jschveibinz 3y ago
https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/ma-stock https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/ma-stock
jjgreen 3y ago
Cash doesn't have this problem.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  https://www.wheresgeorge.com/ https://www.wheresgeorge.com/
  - codersfocus 3y ago
    Apparently this site patented itself. What a sad state of affairs that they give patents out like candy. I feel like the governent patent agents are the lowest hanging fruit of things to change. Get rid of them and have private "bondsmen" that are responsible for every patent, where they need to have (average cost of patent litigation) * N held somewhere and it's ripe for the taking if they fail to defend it in court. https://patents.google.com/patent/US8682917B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US8682917B2/en
  - citizenpaul 3y ago
    The first time I found money stamped with this .wheresgeorge.comI looked up the ID on the site. The person had written pages and pages of how much they hated their ex wife and how this website was the only way he could connect with his kids. Kind of weird and funny and sad all at the same time. Also not at all what I expected.
senkora 3y ago
A lot of these products descend from their Applied Predictive Technologies acquisition back in 2015. APT was a very interesting company. It was a hybrid between a business consulting company and a software company. And by that I mean, if you saw them at the Harvard career fair they would tell you that they were a consulting company, and if you saw them at the CMU career fair they would tell you that they were a software company. Because they preferred to hire their consultants from Harvard (and others) and their software developers from CMU (and others). And the truth was in the middle. The software half of the company built data analysis and business analytics software platforms, that the consulting half of the business drove on behalf of clients as part of engagements. It was a consulting company that, rather than building their consulting work on a mess of excel and powerpoint, built it on a robust in-house data analysis platform instead. Quite a unique place.
- maeil 3y ago
  Sounds very similar to Palantir, except for the part about telling others that they're a consulting company.
dakial1 3y ago
I never understood why Meta didn't buy mastercard/visa as this would give it a greater grip on people's personal data.
- Brajeshwar 3y ago
  I don’t have better words to describe this but I believe, it is the lack of imagination. They already have the distribution channel, they should borrow an idea from Apple’s book and introduce something akin to Apple Pay. VISA and MasterterCard will be fighting over that partnership.
- danielrhodes 3y ago
  It’s an entirely different business?
- 4death4 3y ago
  Because both companies are worth many hundreds of billions of dollars? Meta couldn’t afford it.
  - StopHammoTime 3y ago
    I think people tend to forget that while there is a lot of money in tech, there’s a lot more money in money (finance) xD.
Kretinsky 3y ago
This is why we need cash, encryption, and strong privacy laws.

95 points by janedoegrrr 3y ago

I remember when banks weren’t allowed to sell transaction data. I wonder if the law changed, or if the root cause of this being allowed is an enforcement / judicial issue. I also wonder if they managed to get a carve out for themselves in California’s recently-passed universal data broker opt-out law.

craighay1 3y ago

It was unclear from the article whether this applies to only credit card transactions or also Mastercard debit cards. At least it is possible to choose not to use credit cards, a bit harder with debit. I'd love to see how this data is "anonymised". On a related note, in the UK at least, all of the big supermarkets have switched their loyalty card (data harvesting schemes) from offering "points" per unit spend to offering direct large discounts on certain items in store. Makes it much more difficult to justify opting out of giving away the details of your personal shopping habits to these corporations.

jschveibinz 3y ago

https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/ma-stock https://markets.businessinsider.com/stocks/ma-stock

jjgreen 3y ago

Cash doesn't have this problem.

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
https://www.wheresgeorge.com/ https://www.wheresgeorge.com/
- codersfocus 3y ago
  Apparently this site patented itself. What a sad state of affairs that they give patents out like candy. I feel like the governent patent agents are the lowest hanging fruit of things to change. Get rid of them and have private "bondsmen" that are responsible for every patent, where they need to have (average cost of patent litigation) * N held somewhere and it's ripe for the taking if they fail to defend it in court. https://patents.google.com/patent/US8682917B2/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US8682917B2/en
- citizenpaul 3y ago
  The first time I found money stamped with this .wheresgeorge.comI looked up the ID on the site. The person had written pages and pages of how much they hated their ex wife and how this website was the only way he could connect with his kids. Kind of weird and funny and sad all at the same time. Also not at all what I expected.

senkora 3y ago

A lot of these products descend from their Applied Predictive Technologies acquisition back in 2015. APT was a very interesting company. It was a hybrid between a business consulting company and a software company. And by that I mean, if you saw them at the Harvard career fair they would tell you that they were a consulting company, and if you saw them at the CMU career fair they would tell you that they were a software company. Because they preferred to hire their consultants from Harvard (and others) and their software developers from CMU (and others). And the truth was in the middle. The software half of the company built data analysis and business analytics software platforms, that the consulting half of the business drove on behalf of clients as part of engagements. It was a consulting company that, rather than building their consulting work on a mess of excel and powerpoint, built it on a robust in-house data analysis platform instead. Quite a unique place.

maeil 3y ago
Sounds very similar to Palantir, except for the part about telling others that they're a consulting company.

dakial1 3y ago

I never understood why Meta didn't buy mastercard/visa as this would give it a greater grip on people's personal data.

Brajeshwar 3y ago
I don’t have better words to describe this but I believe, it is the lack of imagination. They already have the distribution channel, they should borrow an idea from Apple’s book and introduce something akin to Apple Pay. VISA and MasterterCard will be fighting over that partnership.
danielrhodes 3y ago
It’s an entirely different business?
4death4 3y ago
Because both companies are worth many hundreds of billions of dollars? Meta couldn’t afford it.
- StopHammoTime 3y ago
  I think people tend to forget that while there is a lot of money in tech, there’s a lot more money in money (finance) xD.

Kretinsky 3y ago

This is why we need cash, encryption, and strong privacy laws.