USE CASH! LEARN BETTER OPSEC TOO: >>>/prepare/22 | archive.fo/CYc78
For the past year, select Google advertisers have had access to a potent new tool to track whether the ads they ran online led to a sale at a physical store in the U.S. That insight came thanks in part to a stockpile of Mastercard transactions that Google paid for.
But most of the two billion Mastercard holders aren’t aware of this behind-the-scenes tracking. That’s because the companies never told the public about the arrangement.
Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Mastercard Inc. brokered a business partnership during about four years of negotiations, according to four people with knowledge of the deal, three of whom worked on it directly. 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.com Inc. 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.
"People don’t expect what they buy physically in a store to be linked to what they are buying online,” said Christine Bannan, counsel with the advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). "There’s just far too much burden that companies place on consumers and not enough responsibility being taken by companies to inform users what they’re doing and what rights they have.”
Google paid Mastercard millions of dollars for the data, according to two people who worked on the deal, and the companies discussed sharing a portion of the ad revenue, according to one of the people. The people asked not to be identified discussing private matters. 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.
Seth Eisen, a Mastercard spokesman, also declined to comment specifically on Google. But he said Mastercard shares transaction trends with merchants and their service providers to help them measure "the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns.” The information, which includes sales volumes and average size of the purchase, is shared only with permission of the merchants, Eisen added. "No individual transaction or personal data is provided," he said in a statement. "We do not provide insights that track, serve up ads to, or even measure ad effectiveness relating to, individual consumers."
Last year, when Google announcedthe service, called "Store Sales Measurement," the company just said it had access to "approximately 70 percent" of U.S. credit and debit cards through partners, without naming them.
Like user in /v/ said, it's like we're living in Shadowrun but without all the cool shit.
Cameron Hall
Shadowrun is a science fantasy tabletop role-playing game set in a near-future fictional universe in which cybernetics, magic and fantasy creatures co-exist.
TRANSLATION: never been laid
Josiah Myers
do yourself a favor:
If and when your testicles finally descend, DO NOT ever mention shadowrun to a female….
trust me………
Wyatt Hall
Then you deserve to get shoah'd by the FBI, faggot
Lucas Johnson
Lol @ you trying to convince yourself that you and your existence are somehow 'important' and worthy of being monitored…..
Isaiah Diaz
Not him, but you better believe they watch image board content and monitor it. Thinking anything else is completely naive.
Jack Roberts
Oh I know. Panties only get drenched if you mention Ravenloft or Dwarf Fortress.
Christian Miller
GUARANTEED:
the government is already well aware that your life consists of image boards videogames, shadowrun, futile masturbation, and begging your mothers to pay your bills
Cameron Jones
Who the fuck said anything about me, faggot?
I was talking specifically about YOU…
YOU, as in the closet homo who wants to rub his scrotum on other dudes' faces………
YOU, as in the numbnuts who thinks his half-assed observations on the Internet are true by any stretch of the imagination………
killcen here. you can go ahead and nuke those two shitholes for all I care. I'm nowhere near those death trap cities. you won't find me because I'm behind 7 active VPNs with Tor booted.
Parker Lee
I ain't your village idiot, I'm the thorn in your ass commie.
Daniel Sanders
the only unknown variable was: who pays whom (whom cos me is liter8) to collect the whole data
Wyatt Nguyen
fuck off johnny nignog
Evan Roberts
go put a dick in your ass you self-important faggot
Kayden Long
There are so many alternative search engines out there. Not even talking about just DuckDuckGo but stuff that relies on a totally different technological foundation that isn’t predicated on collecting users’ data.
The problem is, to most people, privacy has so little value that it may as well be worthless. For all the talk about google’s invasiveness, there’s denying that the indirect social benefits that come from not being monitored as a society pale in comparison to the direct, instant gratification that comes with loading a page 0.5 seconds faster or having your behavior predicted for you. And because invasive technology is always going to be better at providing convenience, there’s basically no way out of this situation.
Like usual, the press found out about it and actually covered it.
Michael Lewis
So then it wasn't secret since everyone found out. If they wanted it a secret you wouldn't know about it
Christopher Powell
Okay jamal stop purchasing all those damn doritos and skettels.
Josiah Lee
t.female
Kayden Green
What a fascinating tale.
Josiah Nguyen
I feel bad for him deeply
Kevin Price
Why can't I ever be put in a position like this?
Eli Carter
He let it happen by letting his kid interact with the internet as a kid
Xavier Rogers
news bump 10
Sebastian Powell
As long as you don't use Google as your search engine, stay away from Google Chrome and use a VPN or Tor they are not likely able to tie that info to your actual browser activity.
Nolan Price
No just be wary about youtube reccomendations of nike trainer reviews and mcdonalds taste tests
Jackson Reyes
I don't even pay attention to their ads or their recommendations, I simply skip to the channels I like and rip the new videos I want to see from their servers.
Henry Murphy
legit news
Justin Campbell
This. I've been ripping a ton of vids recently to upload onto other alternatives, making sure all the truth is being saved.
