Think Credit Cards Don’t Mine Personal Information? Think Again
Credit cards make buying anything from groceries to electronics easy,
whether it’s online or in-person. You might assume that what you
purchased, for how much, and where is information known only to you and
your bank or credit card lender. Unfortunately, your information gets
shared much more widely than that.
Who Gets Your Info?
Obviously, your credit card provider gets information about your purchase. This could be a bank, or it could be a retailer such as Target or Amazon. When Washington Post tech writer Geoffrey A. Fowler bought a banana at Target with this Amazon credit card, he found that the information was also shared with marketers, Google, hedge funds, and possibly more. Mobile wallets and financial apps can capture and use your data. If you slide your card through a point-of-sale machine, such as a Square device, they also receive your information.
What Are They Doing with Your Info?
Why do they want all of this info? What are they doing with it? The answer is both cases is often “marketing.” Sometimes the company itself, such as Amazon or Target, uses the information to create targeted marketing specifically meant for you. They might also sell the data to other marketers or data broker sites.
Chase offers the Amazon Visa, and they can share your information with “nonaffiliates to market to you,” according to their privacy statement. This means they can share with third-party companies that are not owned by Chase. This could be data broker sites, such as Whitepages, or it could be marketers. This data may or may not be anonymized, hashed, or aggregated. Banks, meanwhile, can share personally identifiable data about you to companies, and all they have to do is send you a privacy notice and the right to opt-out.
Data broker sites are buying and selling your purchasing data. Spending patterns can reveal much about you, and there’s always a chance it could be stolen or bought by bad actors, who could use spending data in combination with other information to assist with identity theft. Information removal from Whitepages, MyLife, Spokeo, and other data broker sites can help protect against this. Much like with the banks, the only way to remove the information is by opting out.
How to Opt-Out
In most cases, opt-out procedures are listed in privacy policies. They can take time and effort to complete. This isn’t too different from opting out of data broker sites, or how to remove personal information from Google. Some services can help, such as DeleteMe and Blur. With Blur, you can create virtual burner credit cards to mask your actual card’s information, making it much harder to track you, while also disabling tracking cookies on retailer websites. DeleteMe does the hard work of opting out of data broker sites for you, eliminating a significant route for marketers to buy your information.
About DeleteMe
Boston-based DeleteMe sets a high bar in the online privacy and information security industries, to date helping with more than 20 million consumer opt-outs. Their expert privacy team uses in-depth knowledge of opt-out and privacy policies combined with tested strategies and proprietary technology to remove your personal information from data broker sites. In removing your details from over 40 of the biggest data broker sites, they can help remove personal information from Google. For year-round protection of your personal information, choose a DeleteMe subscription, and keep your personal details private.
Learn more about keeping online information private at Joindeleteme.com
Who Gets Your Info?
Obviously, your credit card provider gets information about your purchase. This could be a bank, or it could be a retailer such as Target or Amazon. When Washington Post tech writer Geoffrey A. Fowler bought a banana at Target with this Amazon credit card, he found that the information was also shared with marketers, Google, hedge funds, and possibly more. Mobile wallets and financial apps can capture and use your data. If you slide your card through a point-of-sale machine, such as a Square device, they also receive your information.
What Are They Doing with Your Info?
Why do they want all of this info? What are they doing with it? The answer is both cases is often “marketing.” Sometimes the company itself, such as Amazon or Target, uses the information to create targeted marketing specifically meant for you. They might also sell the data to other marketers or data broker sites.
Chase offers the Amazon Visa, and they can share your information with “nonaffiliates to market to you,” according to their privacy statement. This means they can share with third-party companies that are not owned by Chase. This could be data broker sites, such as Whitepages, or it could be marketers. This data may or may not be anonymized, hashed, or aggregated. Banks, meanwhile, can share personally identifiable data about you to companies, and all they have to do is send you a privacy notice and the right to opt-out.
Data broker sites are buying and selling your purchasing data. Spending patterns can reveal much about you, and there’s always a chance it could be stolen or bought by bad actors, who could use spending data in combination with other information to assist with identity theft. Information removal from Whitepages, MyLife, Spokeo, and other data broker sites can help protect against this. Much like with the banks, the only way to remove the information is by opting out.
How to Opt-Out
In most cases, opt-out procedures are listed in privacy policies. They can take time and effort to complete. This isn’t too different from opting out of data broker sites, or how to remove personal information from Google. Some services can help, such as DeleteMe and Blur. With Blur, you can create virtual burner credit cards to mask your actual card’s information, making it much harder to track you, while also disabling tracking cookies on retailer websites. DeleteMe does the hard work of opting out of data broker sites for you, eliminating a significant route for marketers to buy your information.
About DeleteMe
Boston-based DeleteMe sets a high bar in the online privacy and information security industries, to date helping with more than 20 million consumer opt-outs. Their expert privacy team uses in-depth knowledge of opt-out and privacy policies combined with tested strategies and proprietary technology to remove your personal information from data broker sites. In removing your details from over 40 of the biggest data broker sites, they can help remove personal information from Google. For year-round protection of your personal information, choose a DeleteMe subscription, and keep your personal details private.
Learn more about keeping online information private at Joindeleteme.com
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