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JPMorgan to sell customer transaction data to advertisers

154 points by RajT88 3y ago

iamthirsty 3y ago
> “Our deep understanding of consumer spending across categories has driven us to reimagine what retail media networks can offer,” said Rich Muhlstock, President of Chase Media Solutions. “Like retailers, we have first-party data and a dedicated audience. But what sets us apart is the unrivaled scale and insights from our customers – having long-served as a trusted guide for their financial decisions." And now using that trust to make even more money.
mupuff1234 3y ago
This should be illegal. Any way to opt out?
- RajT88 3y ago
  I reached out to their twitter account. It seems unlikely to be covered by the existing privacy controls which just promise to "limit" the information shared with third parties, without detailing what those "limits" are. I don't have high hopes, tbh.
- ramesh31 3y ago
  >Any way to opt out? Leave your Chase cards at home
- dkuntz2 3y ago
  Theoretically you should be able to opt out of at least some of it, though it does opt you out of chase sharing your data in all cases and not just for this one product (which honestly is probably what everyone wants). From their FAQ page, you need to call them: https://www.chase.com/digital/resources/privacy-security/privacy/policy-information#:~:text=What%20if%20I%20don't%20want%20you%20to%20share%20my%20information https://www.chase.com/digital/resources/privacy-security/pri...
chrisweekly 3y ago
This really, really needs to be opt-in.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Call your congressional rep. I’m leaving Chase immediately as a customer over this, but that doesn’t scale.
  - kasey_junk 3y ago
    I’d be shocked if you can find a major bank that doesn’t have a similar program.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Credit union with Zelle support for the Zelle support. Fidelity for everything else (brokerage, retirement, checking account), Wise for international FX digital wallet. (work in financial services, so I am familiar with the product landscape)
      - janalsncm 3y ago
        Do you use credit cards? If not, just know you are leaving cash on the table. Stores have to pay high transaction fees on “premium” cards, which leads them to raise their sticker price. So if you pay cash, you’re basically subsidizing cash-back cards. If I spend $2k a month on my card and get 1.5% back, that’s $30 a month. It adds up.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        hypothesis 3y ago
        Just you wait until lots of places wise up to whole thing and start ambushing you with “btw, we have a 2.xx+% surcharge for credit card tx” at the register. Happens quite a lot lately…
cebert 3y ago
I sure hope they have a way to opt out of this. I find these business practices abhorrent.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 3y ago
  You like opt-outs? I prefer good privacy laws – GDPR FTW!
quest88 3y ago
Where does it say they will sell the data? I missed that in my reading. My interpretation is companies will say "show my product to users with this criteria" and it will. This is the same as fb and Google ads, right?
- phkahler 3y ago
  >> Where does it say they will sell the data? I missed that in my reading. My interpretation is companies will say "show my product to users with this criteria" and it will. This is the same as fb and Google ads, right? This is IMHO an important distinction. AFAICT Google doesn't sell data to advertisers, they target the ads for the advertisers. It's still annoying, but it's way less offensive than all the data sharing/selling that goes on.
  - lesuorac 3y ago
    Well, Google does sell user data (see Squarespace acquisition [1]) but sure not yet to an advertiser. IIUC, it's a much more vetted system than most online advertisers do. Chase has some screenshots [2] which would imply they're not grabbing data at runtime from a 3rd party and it seems very similar to their experiences "adverts" [3]. I think PayPal's Offers is probably the best parallel. [4] [1]: https://support.google.com/domains/answer/13689670?hl=en https://support.google.com/domains/answer/13689670?hl=en [2]: https://www.chase.com/mediasolutions/solutions https://www.chase.com/mediasolutions/solutions [3]: https://www.chase.com/personal/events/experiences https://www.chase.com/personal/events/experiences [4]: https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/offers https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/offers
    - nerdix 3y ago
      If Google sells a part of its business to another company then the data required to operate that business must be included in the sale. That goes without saying. And a lot of companies "sell user data" by that metric. Also, there is no indication that Squarespace has received any user data that is not required for them to take over Google Domain operations (so they would get a user's domains, billing info, etc but not their Google Maps location or their search history).
tentacleuno 3y ago
Are they launching this in the UK, too? I see no mention of that. Perhaps due to our tighter privacy laws, they would likely have to make a few modifications (such as making it opt-in, clear what it does, etc.)
syntaxing 3y ago
This is pretty disgusting. Does anyone know if Amex does something similar?
- kasey_junk 3y ago
  Yes absolutely. Nearly every major financial institution has a similar platform.
- dctoedt 3y ago
  > Does anyone know if Amex does something similar? If Chase does this successfully, we can expect every other bank to follow suit.
  - xetsilon 3y ago
    I use to work at a regional bank and I remember being in discussions on how to do this in 2017-2018. It didn't take a genius to figure out that banking data is quite valuable. Honestly, I assumed given those meetings that this was already common practice with selling to data brokers. Those "how to do this" meetings were not technical. "How to do this without causing a PR shitstorm" would have been a working meeting title. I guess it was all shelved until the 2000lb gorilla bank said lets do it. Or it was just being done quietly previously. With JPM moving on this a bank will not be able to afford to not.
TRDRVR 3y ago
There are “people who improperly use data that’s being given to them, like Plaid,” Dimon told analysts. [0] Amazing how openly CEO's like Dimon will fear-monger about start-ups, when in reality they're just not satisfied with their own team's progress in doing the same exact thing. But of course it's OK when they eventually launch the product. [0]https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/37293/dimon-scared-shitless-by-fintechs-calls-out-plaid https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/37293/dimon-scared-shit...
- hakfoo 3y ago
  Plaid wouldn't exist if there had been practical open banking APIs. Remember their original use case was to offer third-party services something with a little more guiderails than "enter your ACH info and cross your fingers" and a little less clumsy than "we'll take that info and make some test deposits that you have to read back to confirm it's your account."
lxe 3y ago
laughs in CCPA Seriously though, the opt out mechanism for this will probably be required under CA law.
- hypothesis 3y ago
  Most of those state privacy laws will not do much when a federal law governs the situation, e.g. Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) in this case.
screamingninja 3y ago
> As the only bank-led media platform of its kind, Chase Media Solutions combines the scale and audience of a retail media network with the exclusive advantages of Chase’s first-party financial data, institutional credibility and precise targeting capabilities. This seems to be a first, though a lot of transaction data is already leaked to wallet providers (Google, Apple, Samsung) when you add your cards to those digital wallets in exchange for added convenience or offers. Note that these wallets get access to ALL card transactions, including physical card swipes, and not just those conducted via their platform.
- lolinder 3y ago
  > Note that these wallets get access to ALL card transactions, including physical card swipes, and not just those conducted via their platform. Do you have a citation for this? I see no evidence of this in the user-facing parts of the Google Wallet app, nor do I see something like that in the terms.
  - datadrivenangel 3y ago
    With apple wallet, you get a notification when there's a transaction on the card, even if it's not related to the applepay at all.
    - orev 3y ago
      I’ve never seen that. I do see alerts from the bank’s app itself, which makes sense since that’s how I configured it. Are you sure you’re getting alerts through Apple Wallet and not just the bank app?
      - ghancock 3y ago
        It’s real but depends on the issuer. I see it with Amex but not Citibank for example.
      - eek2121 3y ago
        I get alerts via Apple wallet regarding my Fidelity cash management card. Those do not come from Fidelity's app. (Fidelity has amazing banking products btw, but they underinvest in app development.)
ortusdux 3y ago
I'm surprised that no one has tired to do away with receipts. Give vendors a cut on their transaction fees if they integrate. Pitch it to customers as going paperless and giving users more granular data about their spending habits.
impish9208 3y ago
Previously posted here as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39917520 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39917520
ipython 3y ago
I wonder if this is a reaction to the push to reduce interchange fees for credit cards by creating a new revenue stream that offsets the proposed changes. See https://handsoffmyrewards.com/ https://handsoffmyrewards.com/
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
hiidrew 3y ago
This makes me curious on what type of data my bank (and others) share with companies involved in these ad/offer-type systems. This announcement doesn't seem like it's anything new on the consumer side, instead it's a platform for brands to access the data from their ads/offers, create campaigns, etc.
TheJoeMan 3y ago
I don’t like it, but I expect it might be similar to how currently in the Chase app every time an ACH posts from Schwab pulling into my retirement account, in the Chase app an ad for their retirement account pops up.
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
I used to work in this space, so will explain more about what this actually is. "Card-linked offers" have existed for a while now, and I know they are supported by at least the Mastercard, Visa and AmEx networks. How it works is: 1. A company that provides the card linked offers goes out and markets to brands that they should provide an offer. The idea is that someone who uses their card at this brand will then get cash back or some discount (e.g. "Sign up to get 10% cash back when you buy from Whataburger.") For the brand it's basically just a new marketing channel. 2. Importantly, the way I've always seen it work is the user must sign up for the discounts, or otherwise sign up for something that says "I want to be eligible for any discounts your platform offers". That is, the cardholder sees a list of promotions, and they then must tap on each one that they want to subscribe to. After that they will get discounts if they shop at those stores. 3. The card-linked-offers provider then gets notified by the card networks when there is an intersection of (a) a cardholder that signed up and (b) shopped at a store that offered a discount. So to me it looks like Chase is essentially just taking this in house. Whether you think that's a good or bad thing is up to you, but just know that lots of other companies already did this, and these card-linked offers have been enabled by the major card networks for some time.
- gamacodre 3y ago
  Vertical integration in this space sounds like a really bad thing to me ("bad" in the sense of "likely to lead to the creation of products that erode human dignity in new and interesting ways").
flkiwi 3y ago
I just want to get all the people communicating "special offers"-type arrangements in a room and tell them their messaging sounds unbelievably creepy. Anyhoo, other than privacy concerns, my issue with this is a scenario like buying a UTI kit at the drugstore for a family member and suddenly getting all manner of urinary and kidney health ads nonstop. Like, I certainly don't LOVE 99.9% of Brands I interact with regularly, because most of them, from clothes to meds, are things I buy because I have to. Even my favorite Brands run the risk of the "oh god the Thai restaurant knows my takeout order before I place it because I come here too much so now I have to stop coming here for at least 6 months" effect if they get too clingy, and anyone else is basically instant "NOPE."
xnx 3y ago
More discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39920111 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39920111

154 points by RajT88 3y ago

> “Our deep understanding of consumer spending across categories has driven us to reimagine what retail media networks can offer,” said Rich Muhlstock, President of Chase Media Solutions. “Like retailers, we have first-party data and a dedicated audience. But what sets us apart is the unrivaled scale and insights from our customers – having long-served as a trusted guide for their financial decisions." And now using that trust to make even more money.

mupuff1234 3y ago

This should be illegal. Any way to opt out?

RajT88 3y ago
I reached out to their twitter account. It seems unlikely to be covered by the existing privacy controls which just promise to "limit" the information shared with third parties, without detailing what those "limits" are. I don't have high hopes, tbh.
ramesh31 3y ago
>Any way to opt out? Leave your Chase cards at home
dkuntz2 3y ago
Theoretically you should be able to opt out of at least some of it, though it does opt you out of chase sharing your data in all cases and not just for this one product (which honestly is probably what everyone wants). From their FAQ page, you need to call them: https://www.chase.com/digital/resources/privacy-security/privacy/policy-information#:~:text=What%20if%20I%20don't%20want%20you%20to%20share%20my%20information https://www.chase.com/digital/resources/privacy-security/pri...

chrisweekly 3y ago

This really, really needs to be opt-in.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
Call your congressional rep. I’m leaving Chase immediately as a customer over this, but that doesn’t scale.
- kasey_junk 3y ago
  I’d be shocked if you can find a major bank that doesn’t have a similar program.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Credit union with Zelle support for the Zelle support. Fidelity for everything else (brokerage, retirement, checking account), Wise for international FX digital wallet. (work in financial services, so I am familiar with the product landscape)
    - janalsncm 3y ago
      Do you use credit cards? If not, just know you are leaving cash on the table. Stores have to pay high transaction fees on “premium” cards, which leads them to raise their sticker price. So if you pay cash, you’re basically subsidizing cash-back cards. If I spend $2k a month on my card and get 1.5% back, that’s $30 a month. It adds up.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - hypothesis 3y ago
        Just you wait until lots of places wise up to whole thing and start ambushing you with “btw, we have a 2.xx+% surcharge for credit card tx” at the register. Happens quite a lot lately…

cebert 3y ago

I sure hope they have a way to opt out of this. I find these business practices abhorrent.

rcMgD2BwE72F 3y ago
You like opt-outs? I prefer good privacy laws – GDPR FTW!

quest88 3y ago

Where does it say they will sell the data? I missed that in my reading. My interpretation is companies will say "show my product to users with this criteria" and it will. This is the same as fb and Google ads, right?

phkahler 3y ago
>> Where does it say they will sell the data? I missed that in my reading. My interpretation is companies will say "show my product to users with this criteria" and it will. This is the same as fb and Google ads, right? This is IMHO an important distinction. AFAICT Google doesn't sell data to advertisers, they target the ads for the advertisers. It's still annoying, but it's way less offensive than all the data sharing/selling that goes on.
- lesuorac 3y ago
  Well, Google does sell user data (see Squarespace acquisition [1]) but sure not yet to an advertiser. IIUC, it's a much more vetted system than most online advertisers do. Chase has some screenshots [2] which would imply they're not grabbing data at runtime from a 3rd party and it seems very similar to their experiences "adverts" [3]. I think PayPal's Offers is probably the best parallel. [4] [1]: https://support.google.com/domains/answer/13689670?hl=en https://support.google.com/domains/answer/13689670?hl=en [2]: https://www.chase.com/mediasolutions/solutions https://www.chase.com/mediasolutions/solutions [3]: https://www.chase.com/personal/events/experiences https://www.chase.com/personal/events/experiences [4]: https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/offers https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/offers
  - nerdix 3y ago
    If Google sells a part of its business to another company then the data required to operate that business must be included in the sale. That goes without saying. And a lot of companies "sell user data" by that metric. Also, there is no indication that Squarespace has received any user data that is not required for them to take over Google Domain operations (so they would get a user's domains, billing info, etc but not their Google Maps location or their search history).

tentacleuno 3y ago

Are they launching this in the UK, too? I see no mention of that. Perhaps due to our tighter privacy laws, they would likely have to make a few modifications (such as making it opt-in, clear what it does, etc.)

syntaxing 3y ago

This is pretty disgusting. Does anyone know if Amex does something similar?

kasey_junk 3y ago
Yes absolutely. Nearly every major financial institution has a similar platform.
dctoedt 3y ago
> Does anyone know if Amex does something similar? If Chase does this successfully, we can expect every other bank to follow suit.
- xetsilon 3y ago
  I use to work at a regional bank and I remember being in discussions on how to do this in 2017-2018. It didn't take a genius to figure out that banking data is quite valuable. Honestly, I assumed given those meetings that this was already common practice with selling to data brokers. Those "how to do this" meetings were not technical. "How to do this without causing a PR shitstorm" would have been a working meeting title. I guess it was all shelved until the 2000lb gorilla bank said lets do it. Or it was just being done quietly previously. With JPM moving on this a bank will not be able to afford to not.

TRDRVR 3y ago

There are “people who improperly use data that’s being given to them, like Plaid,” Dimon told analysts. [0] Amazing how openly CEO's like Dimon will fear-monger about start-ups, when in reality they're just not satisfied with their own team's progress in doing the same exact thing. But of course it's OK when they eventually launch the product. [0]https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/37293/dimon-scared-shitless-by-fintechs-calls-out-plaid https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/37293/dimon-scared-shit...

hakfoo 3y ago
Plaid wouldn't exist if there had been practical open banking APIs. Remember their original use case was to offer third-party services something with a little more guiderails than "enter your ACH info and cross your fingers" and a little less clumsy than "we'll take that info and make some test deposits that you have to read back to confirm it's your account."

lxe 3y ago

laughs in CCPA Seriously though, the opt out mechanism for this will probably be required under CA law.

hypothesis 3y ago
Most of those state privacy laws will not do much when a federal law governs the situation, e.g. Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) in this case.

screamingninja 3y ago

> As the only bank-led media platform of its kind, Chase Media Solutions combines the scale and audience of a retail media network with the exclusive advantages of Chase’s first-party financial data, institutional credibility and precise targeting capabilities. This seems to be a first, though a lot of transaction data is already leaked to wallet providers (Google, Apple, Samsung) when you add your cards to those digital wallets in exchange for added convenience or offers. Note that these wallets get access to ALL card transactions, including physical card swipes, and not just those conducted via their platform.

lolinder 3y ago
> Note that these wallets get access to ALL card transactions, including physical card swipes, and not just those conducted via their platform. Do you have a citation for this? I see no evidence of this in the user-facing parts of the Google Wallet app, nor do I see something like that in the terms.
- datadrivenangel 3y ago
  With apple wallet, you get a notification when there's a transaction on the card, even if it's not related to the applepay at all.
  - orev 3y ago
    I’ve never seen that. I do see alerts from the bank’s app itself, which makes sense since that’s how I configured it. Are you sure you’re getting alerts through Apple Wallet and not just the bank app?
    - ghancock 3y ago
      It’s real but depends on the issuer. I see it with Amex but not Citibank for example.
    - eek2121 3y ago
      I get alerts via Apple wallet regarding my Fidelity cash management card. Those do not come from Fidelity's app. (Fidelity has amazing banking products btw, but they underinvest in app development.)

ortusdux 3y ago

I'm surprised that no one has tired to do away with receipts. Give vendors a cut on their transaction fees if they integrate. Pitch it to customers as going paperless and giving users more granular data about their spending habits.

impish9208 3y ago

Previously posted here as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39917520 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39917520

ipython 3y ago

I wonder if this is a reaction to the push to reduce interchange fees for credit cards by creating a new revenue stream that offsets the proposed changes. See https://handsoffmyrewards.com/ https://handsoffmyrewards.com/

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

hiidrew 3y ago

This makes me curious on what type of data my bank (and others) share with companies involved in these ad/offer-type systems. This announcement doesn't seem like it's anything new on the consumer side, instead it's a platform for brands to access the data from their ads/offers, create campaigns, etc.

TheJoeMan 3y ago

I don’t like it, but I expect it might be similar to how currently in the Chase app every time an ACH posts from Schwab pulling into my retirement account, in the Chase app an ad for their retirement account pops up.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

I used to work in this space, so will explain more about what this actually is. "Card-linked offers" have existed for a while now, and I know they are supported by at least the Mastercard, Visa and AmEx networks. How it works is: 1. A company that provides the card linked offers goes out and markets to brands that they should provide an offer. The idea is that someone who uses their card at this brand will then get cash back or some discount (e.g. "Sign up to get 10% cash back when you buy from Whataburger.") For the brand it's basically just a new marketing channel. 2. Importantly, the way I've always seen it work is the user must sign up for the discounts, or otherwise sign up for something that says "I want to be eligible for any discounts your platform offers". That is, the cardholder sees a list of promotions, and they then must tap on each one that they want to subscribe to. After that they will get discounts if they shop at those stores. 3. The card-linked-offers provider then gets notified by the card networks when there is an intersection of (a) a cardholder that signed up and (b) shopped at a store that offered a discount. So to me it looks like Chase is essentially just taking this in house. Whether you think that's a good or bad thing is up to you, but just know that lots of other companies already did this, and these card-linked offers have been enabled by the major card networks for some time.

gamacodre 3y ago
Vertical integration in this space sounds like a really bad thing to me ("bad" in the sense of "likely to lead to the creation of products that erode human dignity in new and interesting ways").

flkiwi 3y ago

I just want to get all the people communicating "special offers"-type arrangements in a room and tell them their messaging sounds unbelievably creepy. Anyhoo, other than privacy concerns, my issue with this is a scenario like buying a UTI kit at the drugstore for a family member and suddenly getting all manner of urinary and kidney health ads nonstop. Like, I certainly don't LOVE 99.9% of Brands I interact with regularly, because most of them, from clothes to meds, are things I buy because I have to. Even my favorite Brands run the risk of the "oh god the Thai restaurant knows my takeout order before I place it because I come here too much so now I have to stop coming here for at least 6 months" effect if they get too clingy, and anyone else is basically instant "NOPE."

xnx 3y ago

More discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39920111 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39920111