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PayPal will use your purchase information and shopping patterns to sell targeted ads (www.theverge.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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“If you’re someone who’s buying products on the web, we know who is buying the products where, and we can leverage the data,” Grether said in a statement to the WSJ. He also said that PayPal will receive shopping data from customers using its credit card in stores.

A PayPal spokesperson tells the WSJ that the company will collect data from customers by default while also offering the ability to opt out.

PayPal is far from the only company to sell ads based on transaction information. In January, a study from Consumer Reports revealed that Facebook gets information about users from thousands of different companies, including retailers like Walmart and Amazon. JPMorgan Chase also announced that it’s creating an ad network based on customer spending data, while Visa is making similar moves. Of course, this doesn’t include the tracking shopping apps do to log your offline purchases, too.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

As far as data goes, purchase data is one I can live with businesses doing this kinda stuff with. I'm using their platform to complete the sale, so it'd make sense to me they'd have data of that sale. And it makes sense to me that a business would leverage that data in ways to benefit themselves.

Someone tell me if I should be concerned, but this seems like what everyone else has done as long as they've been able to do it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

And it makes sense to me that a business would leverage that data in ways to benefit themselves.

Big fat nope on that one. This is exactly what the GDPR is about. I'm giving you my data for a specific purpose, and unless I tell you otherwise, you have no fucking business using that data for anything else. Gonna be interesting to see how this one plays out in the EU.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Thw issue is aggregation of all of the data into mega datasets that are used to fix prices.

A lot of the inflation we are seeing recently is literally result of these dataset being compiled.

They know how much you make, how much you save etc so they can determine how much they can extract from you esp once you add behavioral data. We are all profiled and they know what you like.

Although fast food seems to finally hit a wall on that...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The worst part is that it doesn't just affect you, it'll make it much easier to profile new users going forward so future generations will be screwed over even more. Imagine your insurance prices or phone bill being calculated by your max tolerance you would pay before searching for a different provider

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

we started down this path when we all signed for cash back credit card tbh...

but yes data does have a snow ball property... and boy have we hit critical mass. at this point, i doubt any of this can be reverted or even properly countered.

Best we can do is small direct action since the government sold out us and will side with mega corps.