the walls have ears
Mar. 10th, 2006 11:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioYesterday I got a statement from my credit-card company. It was a transaction summary for 2005; I've never seen this sort of thing before. The front page informed me that last year I spent $X on food, $Y on entertainment, $Z on professional services, and so on for about 15 broad categories. That's the sort of thing that could be useful if you don't think about it -- but I'm the kind of person who thinks about it.
I'm not sure which possibility is more disturbing: that they are making inferences based on who the payee is (Giant Eagle sounds like groceries, etc), or that the merchants are providing the credit-card companies with categories for the transactions.
My record-keeping is not thorough enough for me to figure out which is more likely on my own. Perhaps I will ask them.
When I use a credit card I fully expect that the particulars of the transaction -- date, amount, and merchant -- are not private and might be mined. If it's really important to me, I pay cash. But I do not expect a description, even a high-level one, of the goods or services purchased to be part of that record.
I'm not sure which possibility is more disturbing: that they are making inferences based on who the payee is (Giant Eagle sounds like groceries, etc), or that the merchants are providing the credit-card companies with categories for the transactions.
My record-keeping is not thorough enough for me to figure out which is more likely on my own. Perhaps I will ask them.
When I use a credit card I fully expect that the particulars of the transaction -- date, amount, and merchant -- are not private and might be mined. If it's really important to me, I pay cash. But I do not expect a description, even a high-level one, of the goods or services purchased to be part of that record.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-10 06:14 pm (UTC)The rest of that already happens on some levels with those loyalty programs. The tag you get from Giant Eagle... that's tracking exact purchases. They probably don't do it on the pharmacy side, since that would be more problematic with HIPPA, but everything else... it's a free game.
I think this is less sinister than what they do with the loyalty card programs... There isn't that much information sent via the credit card terminals right now to VISA, so you're probably safe on that front... for now.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-10 07:35 pm (UTC)Yes, it sounds like that's what they do. Specific, point-of-sale, determination is the scenario I had wondered about; it sounds like that's not happening.
The affinity cards are different because I can use them or not, without changing how I conduct the transaction. If, however, using a credit card to make the payment were to cause the same data to be tracked, regardless of my intentions, that would be annoying. A database with all of my specific purchases would probably be valuable to someone; I've decided that a database of (some of) my grocery purchases in the hands of the grocery store doesn't bother me.