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Advertising Google Businesses Privacy The Almighty Buck United States

Google Bought Mastercard Data To Link Online Ads To Store Purchases, Says Report (bloomberg.com) 137

Posted by BeauHD from the location-tracking dept.
According to Bloomberg, citing people with knowledge of the deal, Google purchased "a stockpile of Mastercard transactions" that allowed Google advertisers to see whether the ads they ran online led to a sale at a physical store in the U.S. This arrangement was never shared with the public. From the report: Alphabet's Google and Mastercard brokered a business partnership during about four years of negotiations. The alliance gave Google an unprecedented asset for measuring retail spending, part of the search giant's strategy to fortify its primary business against onslaughts from Amazon and others. But the deal, which has not been previously reported, could raise broader privacy concerns about how much consumer data technology companies like Google quietly absorb.

Google paid Mastercard millions of dollars for the data [...] and the companies discussed sharing a portion of the ad revenue. A spokeswoman for Google said there is no revenue sharing agreement with its partners. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment on the partnership with Mastercard, but addressed the ads tool. "Before we launched this beta product last year, we built a new, double-blind encryption technology that prevents both Google and our partners from viewing our respective users' personally identifiable information," the company said in a statement. "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." The company said people can opt out of ad tracking using Google's "Web and App Activity" online console. Inside Google, multiple people raised objections that the service did not have a more obvious way for cardholders to opt out of the tracking.
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Google Bought Mastercard Data To Link Online Ads To Store Purchases, Says Report More

Google Bought Mastercard Data To Link Online Ads To Store Purchases, Says Report

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday August 30, 2018 @09:14PM (#57228934)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Mastercard story or Google story? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 30, 2018 @09:29PM (#57228980)

    Is the story here that *MASTERCARD* sells all your financial transaction data around the world to lots of companies (think Cambridge Analytics etc.), or that Google buys them?

    It seems to be a Mastercard story dressed up as a Google one.

    Financial transactions should be covered by the same level of privacy as banking transactions, which would make this illegal to sell that data in EU, and it use to be USA had similar laws.

    But given that they're selling the data, can we buy Trump/Trump family/Trump company/ card data? If he has nothing to hide, and I'm sure that's true because he keeps saying it on twitter, then he has nothing to fear.

    • Can anyone who works in that industry or knows the details for certain educate us: do mastercard's (amex, visa, ...) records include details of WHAT was bought or just what i see on my credit card receipt (i.e. amount, date, store ID)

      thanks

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Per the article, all of the data is double-blinded. So yes you can buy this data. You buy the whole data set and you'll get the Trump data if they use Mastercard. In most cases, it's probably hard to actually pull out the PII but I bet this trove can be hacked to look for public figures who spend large sums since there is a lot of public information on their whereabouts at various times et cetera.
  • Seriously, it is long past time to fire him.

  • Google have been doing it for years (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 30, 2018 @09:37PM (#57229002)

    It should always be assumed that Google is spying on anything they can, that they will lie about it when feasible, and that they have no shame in doing so. This is not new. It's up to you to protect yourself.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]

    https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org]

  • Par for the course... (Score:5, Informative)

    by ChatHuant ( 801522 ) on Thursday August 30, 2018 @09:49PM (#57229034)

    This isn't some new behavior for Google - just an expansion of an already existing program. Google has been collecting your off-line purchases for years now. They're
    boasting [googleblog.com] about it, too.

    Here's a relevant quote: ...even if your business doesn't have a large loyalty program, you can still measure store sales by taking advantage of Google's third-party partnerships, which capture approximately 70% of credit and debit card transactions in the United States. So, more than two thirds of your non on-line purchases are tracked by Google and sold to all and sundry.

    Of course, as a simple citizen, you get no option or recourse. Even if you haven't ever signed on with Google, even if aren't using any of their properties, or if you tried to opt out of everything, you' still can't escape their stalking. Every breath you take, every move you make, they'll be watching you.

    • So, more than two thirds of your non on-line purchases are tracked by Google

      "Google's third-party partnerships" surely means that Google themselves aren't tracking it directly, but rather get their data from the likes of Neilson and IRI, the same as everyone else.

      • Google themselves aren't tracking it directly, but rather get their data from the likes of Neilson and IRI, the same as everyone else.

        The problem is that Google collects all the disparate pieces of info from lots of individual third parties (each of them having only small and mostly separate chunklets of data), then centralizes and correlates them into a big data iceberg. This is something other parties can't do, even if they wanted.

        Google has to be able to identify you personally, if they can match the ads they have shown you to the purchases you made, and extract the ad performance information they say they provide. Nobody else can do t

    • Here's a relevant quote: ...even if your business doesn't have a large loyalty program, you can still measure store sales by taking advantage of Google's third-party partnerships, which capture approximately 70% of credit and debit card transactions in the United States. So, more than two thirds of your non on-line purchases are tracked by Google and sold to all and sundry.

      Not mine. I pay cash.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      In Europe selling transaction details to Google would be illegal for credit card companies, and for around 20 years. The USA is behind on consumer protection if it does not have similar laws in place.

    • Of course, as a simple citizen, you get no option or recourse.

      This has nothing to do with being a citizen but 100% with being a consumer. Stop mixing unmixable things.

    • The thing is... we as consumers want it both ways. We want free content on the web, but somebody has to pay the bills to keep the servers running and the programmers programming. So if we won't pay for the content, advertisers foot the bill. Yet we look for every possible way to disable ad content on the "free" pages we consume, fight against any kind of tracking metrics that tell the advertisers their money is well spent, and then get outraged when formerly free sites put up paywalls because th

    • This isn't some new behavior for Google - just an expansion of an already existing program. Google has been collecting your off-line purchases for years now.

      Allowing third parties to view my financial transactions feels to me as violating as putting a camera in my home. Even if a trusted friend or relative were the only viewer of the camera footage, that would be extremely creepy. If a for-profit corporation controlled the camera, that would be an outrage. Why is the viewing of non-anonymized financial transactions legal and ostensibly tolerable? Because politicians are easy to bribe (excuse me, educate via legal financial expenditures). Because we are imp

      • Why is the viewing of non-anonymized financial transactions legal and ostensibly tolerable? Because politicians are easy to bribe (excuse me, educate via legal financial expenditures).

        Ah, I'm sure the fact that Google is the biggest [washingtonpost.com] spender on lobbying in the USA is completely unrelated. Because that would be evil!

        it should be clear that "do no evil" is only possible when the meaning of evil is re-engineered.

        Oh...

  • TL;DR Everything is tracked (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I work for a company that links up similar data. Y'all have no idea.

    • Re: TL;DR Everything is tracked (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Actually we do have an idea. That is why we hate you and google and Facebook and every other shitty people tracking data wh0ring tech company.

      Anyone who works in any capacity for any of those and other well known evil companies that comes on here to whine about Trump or anyone elseâ(TM)s evil is a hypocrite and needs to choke to death on a heaping pile of dog shit. Trump has at most 8 years in office. Google Facebook etc will keep your personal information forever.

    • Re: TL;DR Everything is tracked (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You realize that it is your civic duty to sabotage and destroy this crap right? Do what is right for humanity.

  • Google is waging war on our psyche. This here is intelligence gathering, to better identify weak spots in our defenses, in preparation for an escalation of their assault.

    Will we ever fight back?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Dont use their products.

      • Re:Casus belli (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Friday August 31, 2018 @03:13AM (#57229866)

        Wrong. Poison their data.

        As a statistician, I can tell you that there is something way, way worse you can do than not provide me with data. Provide me with false data that I cannot tell from genuine data. Because that devalues my whole data set. If enough poison is added, all of my data is worthless.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dargaud ( 518470 )
          There used to be a firefox plugin that would search for random keywords every few minutes on google, downloading the page in the background and deleting it. I wonder if it's still around.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Unless that involves tons of false purchases which you return, it's not likely to matter

        • Provide me with false data that I cannot tell from genuine data. Because that devalues my whole data set. If enough poison is added, all of my data is worthless.

          I worry more about inadvertently poisoning the data. When some political extremist (left or right) posts some idiotic paranoid conspiracy trope, the first thing I do before explaining why it is idiotic is go searching for relevant articles with genuine facts.

          The result is that my search history is littered with searches for things like child p**n, crime stats among immigrants, rape demographics, the ingredients of homebrewed meth, hate literature, gun ownership, etc. I don't want to think about what that do

          • You mean the reason the lady at the grocery store looks strange at me is that I buy condoms and doggy treats together?

  • Encryption scheme (Score:5, Funny)

    by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Thursday August 30, 2018 @10:56PM (#57229234)

    we built a new, double-blind encryption technology that prevents both Google and our partners from viewing our respective users' personally identifiable information

    For those who are wondering, here's how it works:

    cursor.execute(
        "insert into transactions
        (customer, ccnumber, vendor, item, date)
        values (?, ?, ?, ?, ?)",
        'ankFra ohnsonJa',
        '342 3481 4083 4323 1a',
        'algreensWa',
        'iagra 50mg 10ct Va',
        '2018-08-30').

  • I'm a google rewards user (never paid for anything on google play - except w/ my soul), and I've been suspecting this for a while and here's why... 90% of the time after I visit any store or restaurant i get a survey request where it asks me which store i visited, nails it 99% of the time on which store i visited, and then asks me what i payment type i used to make the purchase: credit card, cash, etc... At first the surveys would ask if i would share my receipt. figuring they could then tie my purchases t

  • Especially so in Europe where the GDPR clearly forbids opt-out.

  • My gf looked at a dress on my computer. She LOOKED at it.
    Now I get adverts almost everywhere, and they're trying to sell me... you guessed it... a dress.

    • Now I get adverts almost everywhere, and they're trying to sell me... you guessed it... a dress.

      and I am sure that you would look very pretty in it :-)

    • On the rare times i see ads, I only get them for things I have already bought on Amazon. Mostly when I am using the phone where there isn't uBlock.

      Would I like "this specific camera I already own", or "this specific computer I already own".

      I bought one of those titanium backpacking cutlery sets last week, so now I get ads for climbing gear. Yeah, I ain't going to be climbing any fucking rocks any time soon.

      • I bought one of those titanium backpacking cutlery sets last week, so now I get ads for climbing gear. Yeah, I ain't going to be climbing any fucking rocks any time soon.

        Well, at least you've started taking the necessary steps in weight reduction.

        • I bought one of those titanium backpacking cutlery sets last week, so now I get ads for climbing gear. Yeah, I ain't going to be climbing any fucking rocks any time soon.

          Well, at least you've started taking the necessary steps in weight reduction.

          Shit, even if I didn't weigh 250lbs, you won't find me willingly suspended from a cable high off the ground.

          Oh, you mean the weight of my gear.

    • Yeah, and not just online. I ordered something for my wife from Woman Within once, and ever since then (the past 3+ years) I've gotten a steady stream of catalogs from them in my name. I have gone to their website and submitted an opt-out request; I have been on the phone with them; I have been in chat with them; I have complained in email. I think all it did was increase the rate of deliveries -- sometimes I get two or three in a single week. No wonder our mail carrier gives me a big grin when I see her at

  • ... to see whether the ads they ran online led to a sale at a physical store in the U.S. ...

    that ads lead to sales. Now they are saying that they do not know this to be true?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      ... to see whether the ads they ran online led to a sale at a physical store in the U.S. ...

      that ads lead to sales. Now they are saying that they do not know this to be true?

      Remember, a marketing company's first priority isn't to sell your product, it's to sell theirs.

  • "Don't be quite as evil as some others. Maybe. Maybe not quite as evil as pimps. That's it."

  • Block all ads (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nitehawk214 ( 222219 ) on Friday August 31, 2018 @09:19AM (#57230992)

    Block all ads, all the time, no exceptions. If you have an ad-supported business that runs ethically, too fucking bad. The 99% of other ads ruined it for you.

    What, no apologists whining (in the Jim Sterling triple-hey voice) "but that stealing"?

  • I am shocked but not surprise that Google and Mastercard got together to exchange very private, very personal information. These are two giant companies that decided that your private information was open to being bought and sold. No hacking company server and selling it on the dark web. No back alley meetings where a briefcase of cash is exchanged for a thumb drive of data. Just big corporations sinking to a new ethical low.

    What is next, Google is going to ask BofA for my bank statements to see how much
  • All the people here on slashdot that said credit card companies do not sell their transaction data, well here is the proof you were demanding. I will say it again here is one of the many reasons cryptocurrency was invented and why so many people want it to replace banks and credit card companies. Just saying.

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