Google, Mastercard: "We know what you buy"

We know there is no privacy on the World Wide Web. We know information about our homes, jobs, families and education can be easily found by anyone who cares to search for it. We know when we make purchases at Amazon, Walmart.com or other online sellers, our orders go into a database which the sellers will use to recommend other items which they think we might be interested in.

What about offline purchases? What about merchandise we buy in a retail store? Well, surprise, surprise, if you're one of the estimated two billion people who pay for things with a Mastercard credit card or debit card, your store purchases are tracked by Google. When you browse products online, Google knows. When you buy those same products at a local store, Google knows. Heck, Google probably knows I just posted this story here. And I'm skeptical of what the unnamed Mastercard "spokesperson" told Slate. I think they know what we buy.

Google and Mastercard are secretly tracking your offline purchases
The Next Web, Sep 2 2018

Google has quietly been providing select advertisers a "stockpile" of offline credit card transaction data. After a four-year negotiation, Google and Mastercard reached a deal that would pay the latter millions in exchange for coughing up data on its card holders, according to a Bloomberg report. Google then packaged the data into a new tool, called Store Sales Measurement, that allows its customers to track whether online ads turned into real-world retail sales.

Neither company informed its users of the arrangement. For Mastercard, that means the bulk of its two billion customers have no knowledge of the behind-the-scenes tracking. Google claims to have access to "approximately 70%" of US credit and debit cards. Purchases made on Mastercard-branded cards account for some 25% of all credit card transactions in the US.

Though Google didn't name its partners, the 70% figure would suggest Mastercard isn't the only credit card company it is currently partnered with. Visa and American Express did not respond to our inquiries about whether they also had similar arrangements with Google.

A Google spokesperson told TNW: "We built a new, double-blind encryption technology that prevents both Google and our partners from viewing our respective users' personally identifiable information. We do not have access to any personal information from our partners' credit and debit cards, nor do we share any personal information with our partners."

For Google, this is just another step in bridging the gap between online ads and offline sales. Since at least 2014, the company has used Google Maps to notify advertisers about users who viewed their ads and then visited brick-and-mortar establishments. This tool, however, didn't track sales made within the stores.

Mastercard couldn't be reached for comment but a spokesperson told Slate: "The premise of what was reported is false. The way our network operates, we do not know the individual items that a consumer purchases. No individual transactions or personal data is provided. We see the retailer's name and the total amount of the consumer's purchase but not specific items."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/techn...L9H0?ocid=AMZN

Here is the original story from Bloomberg:

Google and Mastercard cut a secret ad deal to track retail sales

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...k-retail-sales

Obviously it's a fact a billion of customer does not know about the behind the scene of tracking about master-card..Humble thanks for sharing such a great information with all of among us..Thumbs up