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Here are some examples of things I prefer to buy with cash: purchases at airports (junk food, junk media, junk items); purchases while traveling by car (mostly
by cs702 14y ago
Here are some examples of things I prefer to buy with cash: purchases at airports (junk food, junk media, junk items); purchases while traveling by car (mostly junk food); purchases on riskier/dicier neighborhoods and areas; certain occasional purchases at the grocery store or pharmacy.
Also, on occasion, I will refrain from buying or getting certain things if I can't buy or get them anonymously.
Until the legal, regulatory, and cultural environment meaningfully change, my presumption is that every single non-anonymous purchase I make can and probably will be used against my economic interests, sooner or later.
- jrockway 14y agoWhat about the tinfoil for your hat?
- luser001 14y agoI still don't understand how your actions are influenced by developments in data mining. Am I missing something? It seems like you're just protecting yourself from your card information getting recorded and replayed (old hack in the book).
- adventureful 14y agoBig data mining has made it radically easier / more practical, to mine everybody's purchase records for cross matches on lifestyle choices. In this case, impacting things like health insurance. By shifting to cash, they can't track any of that.
- Negitivefrags 14y agoThere seems to be an underlying assumption here and in the rest of this thread that insurance companies (or others) are somehow getting access to your transaction history. I find this concept bewildering. By what mechanism are you suggesting this occurs? I can't believe that your bank would simply sell it to whoever asks.
- cs702 14y agoBewildering or not, and whether you want to believe it or not, I wouldn't put it past your bank: all the economic incentives are firmly stacked against you. As things stand right now, the regulatory environment permits banks to send you a difficult-to-understand, filled-with-legalese notice letting you know they will be sharing a lot of your information with third parties and certain "affiliates" (such as, say, joint ventures with other companies)... unless you call some call center to opt-out. How easy is it to opt-out? Here's what one consumer found out when he tried to opt-out from one well-known bank's default "privacy" policy: http://blog.joemanna.com/chase-sucks-with-new-privacy-policy-opt-out-process-is-painful http://blog.joemanna.com/chase-sucks-with-new-privacy-policy... Then one reads about companies like Acxiom in this recent article in the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/technology/acxiom-the-quiet-giant-of-consumer-database-marketing.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/technology/acxiom-the-quie...
- Negitivefrags 14y agoPerhaps this is more of a problem in the US than in NZ. My bank has "ASB will not sell your information to third parties." in it's privacy policy near the top. They do talk about sharing information with credit agencies. At least in my country there are laws about this kind of thing. (Privacy Act 1993, NZ)
- pasbesoin 14y agoIt is an argument for straightforward and effective regulation. Otherwise, individuals end up jumping through endless hoops, when they are even offered an "opt out" or similar option.