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MasterCard selling card holder spending data to merchants

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  • MasterCard selling card holder spending data to merchants

    Holiday shopping is just about the corner, which lots of people will take out their charge cards for. They could think twice about doing so if they believed that data about them and their shopping was being sold by the credit card company. As it turns out, it is, as MasterCard, Visa and American Express all sell shopping info to retailers and marketing firms. Article resource: get more info at https://personalmoneynetwork.com/personal-loans/

    The simplest advertisements to find

    Data about what you do, see and like is being sold on the internet all the time. Most people do not even realize they leave a data trail every time they do anything, specifically when it is stuff taking place online.

    Ever “like” a business or product on Facebook? Facebook sells that data to those companies for cold, hard, cash, so they can industry to the people that clicked “like.”

    Another company doing something similar, according to the Daily Mail, is MasterCard, which, like other credit card businesses, tracks spending habits of MasterCard holders. They are also selling that information to merchants, who can industry directly to those people.

    Totally secure, they say

    The Financial Times leaked the story, according to Wired magazine, though it was supposed to be confidential. A private podcast and presentation from MasterCard was produced, and that was where all the info came from.

    MasterCard promises that sensitive customer data, such as names and addresses, will not be sold to the stores. The “MasterCard Audiences” program is not going to be offered anywhere but in the United States where consumers consent is not needed for the program.

    It seems almost impossible to, without knowing where somebody lives and who they are, industry to them directly.

    The way it works, according to the Daily Mail, is that when an individual utilizes their MasterCard, data is recorded about that transaction. MasterCard distills it down to certain “segments,” or related data sets and sells it retailers, who then can market to the people in those info sets.

    Not the only ones

    American Express and Visa both sell information about customer purchases just like MasterCard, according to CNBC. Nearly everything you do online will result in data being sold about your habits. This is the very best way to market to target audiences, and it is a much bigger industry than you can expect.

    Internet cookies do the same thing. They track a person's behavior and search engines and sites traffic that data to retailers. However, not everyone likes the idea that info about them, regardless how innocuous or anonymous, is being sold without their permission or, since it is information about them, giving them a cut of the proceeds.

    Sources

    Daily Mail

    Wired


    CNBC

  • #2
    Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse. If these companies do this, imagine what your government does.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by iamjosan View Post
      Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse. If these companies do this, imagine what your government does.
      ^Really good foreshadowing of the NSA controversy.

      As for credit card companies, it's bad enough all of the junk mail I receive for "pre-approved" offers or "0% introductory APR credit cards" - especially given I opted out from receiving these offers (which has still yet to effect, I suppose). Having this kind of high-risk junk in our mailboxes exposes us to ID fraud, and I can't imagine this level of data-selling makes us any more secure.
      Last edited by Magic_Matt; 08-19-2013, 11:55 AM.

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