Read the Beforeitsnews.com story here. Advertise at Before It's News here.

By CoyotePrime (Reporter)
Contributor profile | More stories

Story Views
Now:
Last hour:
Last 24 hours:
Total:

Google Now Tracks Your Credit Card Purchases and Connects Them to Its Online Profile of You

Sunday, June 11, 2017 4:09

% of readers think this story is Fact. Add your two cents.

“Google Now Tracks Your Credit Card Purchases

and Connects Them to Its Online Profile of You”

by Michael Reilly

“Google’s new ability to match people’s offline credit card purchases to their online lives is a stunning display of surveillance capitalism in action. The capability, which Google unveiled this week, allows the company to connect the dots between the ads that it shows its users and what they end up actually buying. This is a crucial link for Google’s business that, for all of the company’s inventiveness, remains a matter of attracting users to its predominantly free services, collecting user data, and leveraging that data to sell advertising. If Google can show that someone who saw an ad for a furniture store in Google Maps, say, then went and made a big purchase at that store, the store’s owner is much more likely to run more ads.

Of course, Google has been able to track your location using Google Maps for a long time. Since 2014, it has used that information to provide advertisers with information on how often people visit their stores. But store visits aren’t purchases, so, as Google said in a blog post on its new service for marketers, it has partnered with “third parties” that give them access to 70 percent of all credit and debit card purchases. So, if you buy stuff with a card, there’s a less than one-in-three chance that Google doesn’t know about it.

Google has talked a bit about the lengths it goes to in order to preserve user privacy. A piece in the Washington Post on the new service has the following: ”Google executives say they are using complex, patent-pending mathematical formulas to protect the privacy of consumers when they match a Google user with a shopper who makes a purchase in a brick-and-mortar store.

The mathematical formulas convert people’s names and other purchase information, including the time stamp, location, and the amount of the purchase, into anonymous strings of numbers. The formulas make it impossible for Google to know the identity of the real-world shoppers, and for the retailers to know the identities of Google’s users, said company executives, who called the process “double-blind” encryption. The companies know only that a certain number of matches have been made. In addition, Google does not know what products people bought.”

Beyond that, us regular folks pretty much have to take it on faith that this system works. Given how few “anonymous” data points are required to identify an individual from credit card data, it’s hard to believe that linking people’s behavior on services as diverse as Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps, and others to offline buying habits couldn’t result in someone’s privacy being compromised, especially if it ever fell into the hands of hackers.

But let’s not single Google out. For one thing, we users do willingly hand our personal data over to Google – that’s part of the service agreement (whether we have consented to let credit card companies hand our purchase records over in this way is potentially another matter). And for another, Google isn’t alone: Facebook is engaged in essentially the same practice of marrying online information with our offline lives. So, you know, everyone’s doing it.”

- https://www.technologyreview.com/

◆
Read more: The Washington Post, “How Facebook Learns About Your Offline Life,”; “Data Sets Not So Anonymous”
◆

Hat tip to r.j. sigmund for this material.

Source: http://coyoteprime-runningcauseicantfly.blogspot.com/2017/06/google-now-tracks-your-credit-card.html

Before It’s News® is a community of individuals who report on what’s going on around them, from all around the world.

Anyone can join.
Anyone can contribute.
Anyone can become informed about their world.

"United We Stand" Click Here To Create Your Personal Citizen Journalist Account Today, Be Sure To Invite Your Friends.

Please Help Support BeforeitsNews by trying our Natural Health Products below!

Order by Phone at 888-809-8385 or online at https://mitocopper.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST

Order by Phone at 866-388-7003 or online at https://www.herbanomic.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST

Order by Phone at 866-388-7003 or online at https://www.herbanomics.com M - F 9am to 5pm EST

Humic & Fulvic Trace Minerals Complex - Nature's most important supplement! Vivid Dreams again!

HNEX HydroNano EXtracellular Water - Improve immune system health and reduce inflammation.

Ultimate Clinical Potency Curcumin - Natural pain relief, reduce inflammation and so much more.

MitoCopper - Bioavailable Copper destroys pathogens and gives you more energy. (See Blood Video)

Oxy Powder - Natural Colon Cleanser! Cleans out toxic buildup with oxygen!

Nascent Iodine - Promotes detoxification, mental focus and thyroid health.

Smart Meter Cover - Reduces Smart Meter radiation by 96%! (See Video).

Comments

Online:
Visits:	1,604,380,748
Stories:	8,152,941