Banks Find Way To Sell Consumers' Shopping Data

nonprofiteer writes "Banks plan to compete with Groupon and LivingSocial by targeting coupons and deals at credit card holders based on their shopping habits. They found a way to do it without violating financial privacy laws: 'They're "selling" shopping habits the same way Facebook "sells" personal data about its users: in-network. It's a clever privacy work-around. Just as Facebook allows advertisers to specifically target certain kinds of users based on their profile information (without actually providing that profile information to the advertisers), banks plan to allow advertisers to send deals and coupons to their customers based on what they've bought before. That way, no user data actually leaves the network — instead, deals just enter the network. Each time a customer cashes in on one of those deals, the bank gets a commission.'"

Comments

What is "user data"?

[plover]

If "I am defined by what I consume" (from 'you are what you eat') then my shopping history is user data. And as far as my bank is concerned, that's a pretty good definition of their customers.

Re:What is "user data"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am my thoughts. If they exist in her, Buffy contains everything that is me and she becomes me. I cease to exist. No one else exists either. Buffy is all of us. We think. Therefore she is.

Re:What is "user data"?

[pluther]

Huh.

Re:What is "user data"?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a line from a bad '90s television show aimed at teenagers. Leave it at Score:0 and carry on.

Re:What is "user data"?

[nedlohs]

A bad 90s show with more episodes in the 2000s than the 90s...

This is slashdot, you can't lie Firefly without liking Buffy surely?

Re:What is "user data"?

[pluther]

I like that he hates the show, but yet knows it well enough to immediately recognize the line.

Re:What is "user data"?

[green1]

how much effort is it to recognize a quote as being from a specific show when the name of the show is in the quote? I've never seen a single full episode, but even I could tell that it had to come from that show.

Re:What is "user data"?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is slashdot, you can't like Firefly without liking Buffy surely?

Not that I am by any means dissing Firefly, I love the show and own the series on DVD, but the best episodes of Buffy were far more powerful than the best episodes of Firefly.

Re:What is "user data"?

[Jstlook]

This is slashdot, you can't like Firefly without liking Buffy surely?

Not that I am by any means dissing Firefly, I love the show and own the series on DVD, but the best episodes of Buffy were far more powerful than the best episodes of Firefly.

And the worst episodes of Buffy were far worse than watching a firefly drown in kerosene. Just sayin'.

Re:What is "user data"?

[nedlohs]

Hence if you like firefly you would have to like Buffy.

Hello porn coupons!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bring it on!

Re:Hello porn coupons!

[nagnamer]

Bring it on!

Based on your previous purchases we recommend:
* FREE V!AGRA SAMPLES.
* R0LEX REPL!CA WATCHS.
* and a letter from some Cambodian king that desperately needs to give you $200,000

A Technicality:

[Hartree]

So, I send a bank a deal aimed at consumers who (for example) bought alcohol and restrict the geography to an overwhelmingly Mormon neighborhood and get back a list of names. I cross reference those with church memberships. I now can target the backsliders.

I have somehow magically not violated anyones privacy.

Re:A Technicality:

[Radres]

But the bank didn't sell you the list of names. The only way to get a list of names is if someone from the community you are targeting actually clicks-through on your ad and places an order. I'm sure there are other existing ad networks that would allow you to do the same.

Re:A Technicality:

[Ruke]

You don't get a list of names. You send the bank a deal aimed at customers who bought alcohol, and restrict it to a Mormon neighborhood, and the bank sends out your offer. You don't get to know who was sent these deals; the best you could do is know who took advantage of them.

Re:A Technicality:

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the summary again. You, the hypothetical advertiser, never get your hands on the custom distribution list. In order to communicating with this small cross section of the bank's customers, you must hand your message over to the bank, whom then does the communicating for you.

Re:A Technicality:

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

So, I send a bank a deal aimed at consumers who (for example) bought alcohol and restrict the geography to an overwhelmingly Mormon neighborhood and get back a list of names. I cross reference those with church memberships. I now can target the backsliders. I have somehow magically not violated anyones privacy.

... What does mormonism and alcohol have to do with each other? Sure, the mormon faith says you can't drink. So does the muslim faith, and catholics aren't supposed to use contraception. How many muslims do you know that drink, and catholics that take the pill?

Exactly. Now grow up and stop viewing the world in black and white. That's just immature and not how things actually are.

Re:A Technicality:

[EdIII]

You missed the point, but still have the right argument.

When you pay the bank, you don't get back a list of names at all. The bank would be sending out junk mail, SMS, or email based on your chosen demographics. It would be a 3rd party offer.

Most websites, companies, etc. allow you to specify that you don't want to receive it, but they also specify that affiliates and subsidiaries get access to to the data. The banks don't get that loophole in this case.

In your example, what you are really pointing out is that whatever percentage of customers click on the links, or even view the email with downloaded pictures, are revealing themselves and losing their privacy. In order for the bank to receive a commission it needs to admit that particular customer was indeed part of the chosen demographics.

It violates customer's privacy in spirit, in actuality the customer is mislead at best, and worst responsible for losing their own privacy through their own actions.

In other words, the customers are being tricked into confirming purchasing habits outside of the bank.

Very dirty and hopefully there will be an opt-out option for this voluntarily, or by law.

Re:A Technicality:

[Ruke]

Citation: (emphasis mine)

Here's how it works: Say you use your Citi-issued debit card to buy a pair of shoes at Nordstrom, and then Citi sells that information to a series of retailers. As a result, you receive a coupon from Macy's for a 20% discount on shoes at its store. The coupon is delivered by Citi, however, not from Macy's.

Re:A Technicality:

[PopeRatzo]

But the bank didn't sell you the list of names.

You just need to know who to talk to.

I'm sure that for their biggest and best customers, the bank will be happy to provide names.

Plus, if you get the right information, the name gives itself up.

I think you have a much too high opinion of banks' intention to act ethically, which is surprising given the news of the past ten years or so.

Anyway, banks aren't even banks any more. A bank is a place that takes deposits and then lends those deposits out to collect interest, a portion of which is paid on the original deposits. I don't think any of the banks we're talking about still makes a significant portion of their income that way. So, by my lights, they are not banks, they are just crooked hustlers that can act with impunity because they have exploited a weakness in our system by which their profits are kept private, while their risk and losses are socialized to the citizenry.

Re:A Technicality:

[n8_f]

But the bank didn't sell you the list of names.

Trivial. The Mormon Police just have the bank send all of those people a bogus prize certificate for a free motor boat and then when they show up to get their boat, the Mormon Police arrest them and beat them to the full extent of the law.

Re:A Technicality:

[cvtan]

It's OK if banks violate customers in spirit as long as no laws are broken. It is almost impossible to keep making laws to prevent bad bank behavior. They have lots of people sitting in meetings trying to figure out ways to vacuum money from the public.

Re:A Technicality:

[n8_f]

You just need to know who to talk to. I'm sure that for their biggest and best customers, the bank will be happy to provide names.

No, they won't. That would be breaking the law and the whole point of this approach is to avoid breaking the law.

Re:A Technicality:

[Anonymous Coward]

Giving out a list of customers is in violation of privacy laws. If the bank is going to be breaking the law for their best customers, they're going to be breaking the law for their best customers. That's orthogonal to this discussion, which is about a way the banks can make money bending but not breaking those laws in the same way Facebook does.

Re:A Technicality:

[AK Marc]

And that coupon contains a unique code. When purchased, Macy's now has the name, address, and credit card of someone who bought at Nordstrom. Or, for the Mormon one, you give a coupon for 50% off Domino's pizza sent to alcohol purchasers in MormonTown and when those coupons are used, you then get the names and addresses. It adds a step, but it is a vector for "attack" for getting unrelated information from customers. It isn't delivered by the bank, but via the bank, and that apparently makes the leak legal.

Re:A Technicality:

[AK Marc]

You, the hypothetical advertiser, never get your hands on the custom distribution list.

Send them a coupon for a free something, or for a free entry into a contest, and you'll get a sizable portion of the custom distribution list. Sure, you won't get 100%, but there are ways to get customer data from the bank now that weren't possible before.

Re:A Technicality:

[Hartree]

Oh, get off your high horse. I was raised a Methodist and they aren't supposed to drink either. Didn't stop quite a number making the pilgrimage to the Pink House bar a few miles aways. ;)

It was a somewhat whimsical example made to not be taken seriously save for the demonstration that there could be a leak of info.

Even given the safeguard of having the bank send the coupon, when the coupon is used info is given if that style coupon was given only to the bank to forward.

Re:A Technicality:

[AK Marc]

"Banks shall not share any customer data with outside entities, except in cases where the information shared and with whom was explicitly approved by the customer." But make that into a law, and it will be 300 pages long and allow sharing for everything possible and allow the practice of requiring waivers before opening accounts allowing them to share data with anyone else.

Re:A Technicality:

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not impossible, what the US is lacking is a data protection authority as is recommended by the OECD privacy principles as used by most EU countries, with one of the best examples being the Norwegian Data Inspectorate. This kind of breaking the spirit of the law would never get far when your right as a company to deal with private information is dependent on both following the letter and spirit of the laws and regulations.

Re:A Technicality:

[Anonymous Coward]

Opt out....

I'll keep changing banks until I find one that doesn't pull this garbage.

Sure, what I posses doesn't add up to a huge fortune, but then again they do call me once in a while to see how I'm doing.
eric

Re:A Technicality:

[Anonymous Coward]

The technique mentioned would meet the requirements of that simple sentence, since they really aren't sharing any data. The third party could of course include tracking codes/whatever and hence link the criteria they used to anyone actually using the offer (with some bad data slipping in when people hand one over to a friend) but the bank isn't the one doing the sharing.

Re:A Technicality:

[marcosdumay]

Yeah, the customers are being tricked into releasing their information. Yet, that is a completely different situation from their information being released by the bank. I'm not claiming it is moral, but there are two points to consider...

One is that you can simply not use the service, you'll receive spam but you can just ignore it. If it was so easy to protect our personal information at every situation, most of the people concerned would be quite glad.

The other is that this method takes away the economical incentive for corporations to use that information in worse ways. They'd hardly simply sell your information if they can get the same amount of money (or maybe even more, since they are actualy renting) with much less PR and legal repercussions.

Yet, it is dirty. Worse yet because it comes from the banks, a kind of business that everybody has to deal with.

Re:A Technicality:

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway, banks aren't even banks any more. A bank is a place that takes deposits and then lends those deposits out to collect interest, a portion of which is paid on the original deposits.

That would be a very specific kind of bank called an investment bank. The definition of a bank is just a place where a deposit of some value is kept. The bits about loaning at interest and paying some back is an additional service that modern banks claim to provide but actually don't (if they did, you won't be able to access your deposits 24/7 like you can now).

Re:A Technicality:

[antonyb]

This isn't the whole story.

Your bank only knows that you spent money at Nordstrom. It doesn't have an item level transaction history, so it cannot know that you bought shoes unless it has access to Nordstrom's transaction logs. Therefore, for this to really fly, the retailer has to share their t-logs with the bank. So the banks aggregate t-log data from a number of retailers, and then resell that information back to the retailers.

Ant.

Re:A Technicality:

[martin-boundary]

There's a further effect related to increased phishing risks.

If the bank sends spam to their customers, then the customer (or his spam filter...) learns to associate non-banking related communications with his bank. This in turn makes phishing easier, since the small clues that normally make the fake banking emails stand out are no longer that clear.

Banks should never send email to their customers, it should always be the other way around.

Re:A Technicality:

[digitalchinky]

Some merchant API's allow you to detail exactly what was purchased in the transaction, I haven't come across any payment gateways that make these parts of the payload compulsory (yet), but they definitely seem to be available for use. If the bank offered a bit of an incentive to include this information (lower fees) I can well imagine the bean counters would be entirely okay with selling customer souls to make a bit more money.

Re:A Technicality:

[PopeRatzo]

That would be a very specific kind of bank called an investment bank.

There is no longer a distinction between a bank and an "investment bank" in the US.

Citicorp, Bank of America, Chase, and others were given dispensation to become bank "holding companies" which allowed them to become investment banks. This was done at the time of the TARP bailouts.

The only real banks left are very small local banks. And if you look at their reports many of them are also involved with some very shaky investments.

Re:A Technicality:

[PopeRatzo]

No, they won't. That would be breaking the law and the whole point of this approach is to avoid breaking the law.

I think you missed some of the important changes that took place to the biggest banks' charters after the TARP bailouts.

The "law" is just an outdated formality to them now.

Remember when you got the email saying that by continuing to do business with the bank you are automatically agreeing to the changes in their online customer agreement?

Re:A Technicality:

[PopeRatzo]

If the bank is going to be breaking the law for their best customers, they're going to be breaking the law for their best customers.

So? Who's going to do anything about it? The Justice Department?

Did you read the article in Sunday's New York Times about the offer that's been made that if they pay $30 billion there will be no criminal prosecutions? Of course, the profited close to a trillion dollars when they brought down the US economy, so paying the $30 bil is a no-brainer. Anyway, the $30 billion would just be money we as taxpayers gave them in the bailout anyway.

Do you honestly believe the 3 or 4 largest banks in the US give a flying fuck about "the law"? Do you have any evidence of that?

Re:A Technicality:

[canajin56]

And that coupon contains a unique code.

Nope. Macy's never sees a coupon. There is absolutely no way for Macy's to ever know who got the offer, unless the offer is so good and the item is so bad that almost all purchases would be using the coupon. In the examples of the shoes, or the pizza, that's absurd. Even if Macy's was giving a -100% coupon, how could they weed those out from the normal shoe purchases? It would only potentially work on items that are so shitty that nobody (literally nobody) buys them. The privacy concern is not that a merchant could ever find anything out (they absolutely cannot) but that to allow for verification, the merchants would have to send more information to the bank than just the total bill. (Right now some do, I know on my Mastercard some department stores have subtotals per department on my bill). So that's more information than your bank had before. But the law still prevents them from giving it out to anybody other than certain trusted third parties, same as always. I don't know if the same API can be drilled down to an item-by-item bill, or if it can only use broad categories of merchandise (like the "ALL SHOES" in the article's example).

Re:A Technicality:

[canajin56]

You don't even know that. You never see a coupon. You cannot know who took advantage of them. The coupons are not at-the-till discounts, they are rebates, and those rebates are processed by the banks. The only way you could know who took advantage of the deal is if all purchasers were taking advantage of the deal, which you could verify by comparing the total sales with the total bill from the marketing company issuing the rebate coupons.

Re:A Technicality:

[Anonymous Coward]

... What does mormonism and alcohol have to do with each other?

Nothing. You, sir, missed the point. (The point being made above: You get the details of people who meet a demographic (you choose the demographic), if and when they choose to take advantage of your "offer").

it is a vector for "attack" for getting unrelated information from customers

Re:A Technicality:

[AK Marc]

Even if Macy's was giving a -100% coupon, how could they weed those out from the normal shoe purchases?

By having a unique code on the coupon "to prevent reuse" that will link that person with the parameters used to generate that coupon.

The privacy concern is not that a merchant could ever find anything out (they absolutely cannot) but that to allow for verification, the merchants would have to send more information to the bank than just the total bill.

I think you are quite confused. Try this. You send CitiBank $10 per person for them to pass along some coupons (all with unique codes) for one free medium pizza to everyone who shopped at a tobacco store. The code requires online purchase and includes free delivery (costing you another $10 per person). You then have a list of smokers in an area for $20 per person. Sell them to the insurance company to see if anyone's lying on their health insurance about whether they smoke. Sell them to Marlborough. I don't know or care how you use the data, but you can get pieces of personal info (ie smoking purchases) based on bank data, thus violating federal law.

Re:A Technicality:

[AK Marc]

Then "share or allow to be shared" data.

Re:A Technicality:

[flaming error]

+5 funny

Re:A Technicality:

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the whole "we do this so we don't violate the law"-act is just marketing and legal ass covering. If a big enough client will comes along, they won't give a damn. Fines would be pocket change if they'd get caught, compared to the money they'll make in the meantime.

Re:A Technicality:

[Jstlook]

A common ploy among some manufacturers is to sell the same product with a separate SKU / Product line. Garmin comes to mind, where the Garmins available through Walmart have a different product number than the Garmins available through other vendors. I also remember a TigerDirect product that was a U2 iPod, signed by Bono, or some such. Maybe it just had a couple songs on it or something - I don't know.

Point is, even if they offer a product available everywhere, it's almost trivial to make a 'unique' product - even with services. Choose an unusual combination of services (or in the case of, y'know, Pizza .. pick an unusual combination - pizza, a DVD rental, and hot-wings), offer a semi loss-leader on the deal, and walla! You have a customer willingly handing over personal information.

Still, that's essentially the merchant gaming the system and not the bank, but I seriously distrust banks that would willingly open that vector to their customers. They might as well be in the business of identify theft, imho.

Re:A Technicality:

[ArsenneLupin]

"Banks shall not share any customer data with outside entities, except in cases where the information shared and with whom was explicitly approved by the customer."

In this case, the customer does approve the sharing (by using the coupon...)

If he doesn't use the coupon, there's no way the outside party can know whether this customer belonged to the target demographic or not.

Problem is, most users wouldn't be aware of this. Or the price might just be "too good to let slip away", and wouldn't necessarily be related to the purchase being monitored.

Re:A Technicality:

[AmiMoJo]

The police have always had access to this kind of information, as has the tax man. That is the reason that rich people liked to keep money in numbered Swiss accounts, before they opened them up to scrutiny.

Re:A Technicality:

[martin-boundary]

That's very good. Now every Nigerian spammer knows that if they send fake emails from Citi about fake Macy's coupons (which are really phishing attempts) to everybody, then Citi's customers will read the email and think "hmm, this email is a bit dodgy, but Citi usually sends me good deals, so I'll do what this one says anyway".

Re:A Technicality:

[TheRaven64]

I also remember a TigerDirect product that was a U2 iPod, signed by Bono, or some such

That was an official iPod, available directly from Apple and from resellers. It was black with a red clickwheel, as I recall.

Re:A Technicality:

[anti-pop-frustration]

The problem in your example is not advertisement, it's a repressive religion that exert way too much social control over its followers and that punishes and ostracize people based on imaginary crimes.

In other words, loss of privacy for advertising sake, while definitely wrong, is still a lesser evil than religious fundamentalism.

Re:A Technicality:

[nagnamer]

+5 Insightful

Re:A Technicality:

[Penguinisto]

Err, as a former resident of Utah, you don't even need to do that... just go to any casino in Wendover, Nevada (it's only 90 minutes' drive from Salt Lake) and start writing down license plate numbers...

It's like the old running local joke:

* Jews do not recognize Jesus as the messiah.
* Catholics do not recognize Martin Luther as an authority.
* Protestants do not recognize the Vatican as a Christian authority.
* Mormons do not recognize each other in Casinos, Strip Clubs, or Liquor Stores.

Re:A Technicality:

[Anonymous Coward]

The customers will have to opt in for this. The bank will not send you any deals if you do not ask for them. Also the way the program is designed it will show up on their internet banking page. So you bought shoes at Macy's you will see a coupon for Macy's next to the purchase of the shoes. Not all banks will do this. You can bet the big banks like B of A and Wells Fargo will.

Re:A Technicality:

[sorak]

So, I start a coupon publication like RedPlum. I design the coupons, and do everything for the local business. I then make different coupon circulars, based on people who shop at package stores, people who spend money at Hooters, drink at bars, shop at pharmacies, toy stores, dollar stores, high end stores, conferences, and people who pay for newspaper or magazine subscriptions. In fact, I can also throw a contest code in each circular as well. Whatever it is I want to target, with a large enough market, I can reasonably target that item.

I can now piece together some hints to prospective employers. (Of course they can't legally use this information against you, but they can still read "category A businesses" and conclude that you are not a proper fit for their organization based on something unrelated.)

Coupons Redeemed:
Candidate A:
      Pharmacies: 12 - possible health issues
      Shopping Habits: Low income. Shops at toy stores. May have children.

Candidate B:
      Bars and Package Stores: 8 - possible alcoholic
      Information Providers: subscribes to magazines, shops at bookstores, attends conferences.

Of course, I'm not sure what the likelihood of this is, but I do know that data mining is a serious business.

Re:A Technicality:

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct, So the privacy and shopping habits of the bank customers is only violated if they go for the deal.

Re:A Technicality:

[canajin56]

RTFA and then apologize for making things up.

Re:A Technicality:

[Anonymous Coward]

You just need to know who to talk to.
I'm sure that for their biggest and best customers, the bank will be happy to provide names.

No, they won't. That would be breaking the law and the whole point of this approach is to avoid breaking the law.

Well, various advertisers and scammers wanted millions of customer records from Bank of America, Wachovia, and Bancorp to name a few, so they just paid employees directly for them. "The banks" may not have been happy to provide names, but someone at the bank was. Like someone else said, you just need to know who to talk to.

The point is all of these "in-house" marketing schemes entail passing customer data around that should remain confidential and never seen by anyone except in the context of providing the sole service for which the customer is paying for - banking.

Re:A Technicality:

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to re-read the system. It's more along the lines of advertisers submit ads targeted at a demographic. The bank then figures out which of it's users are in that demographic and forwards the ad.

Re:A Technicality:

[Anonymous Coward]

Switch to a Credit Union.

Re:A Technicality:

[AK Marc]

I read the article and my statements are 100% consistent with it. The bank will pass along coupons and offers. Every coupon/offer I get comes with a code of some type, so I'd have to be a complete idiot to assume these offers are codeless.

Re:A Technicality:

[n8_f]

How did this get marked insightful!? I'm pretty sure the Mormon Police aren't real and if they are, I have no special insight into them. It was a Simpsons joke. I guess season 9 was before the moderator's time. Instead of making me feel insightful, your moderation has made me feel old.

Re:A Technicality:

[flaming error]

Woops, meant to post that to the parent comment. Sorry.

sounds great

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds like a great way to lose customers
i dont want any offers or coupons from my bank, ever.

look after my money and in return you get to invest it
and i want a cut of the profits if you do, anything else and you are not a bank. not my bank anyhow.

Not the same space as Groupon

[tttonyyy]

I'm taking my daughter powerboating thanks to a good Groupon deal. We don't normally do that kind a thing, but a good deal caught my eye and it sounded a blast. There is no way could anyone have seen that coming from my purchase history. This isn't the first time Groupon has appealed to the random in me either, and from what I gather from talking to other people this isn't uncommon.

Re:Not the same space as Groupon

[Ruke]

The problem with this, at least from the company's point of view, is that you're not terribly likely to go powerboating again. I mean, certainly there's the possibility that you fall in love with it, and go every week, but the company is likely losing a good deal of money on the initial 50% off. There are too many people who just follow the Groupon deals, rather than following the companies who put out one Groupon, in order to draw people in. The end result is that Groupon can be disastrous to the companies who use it as a means of advertising; they lose significant money on the single biggest boom they've ever seen, and then their demographics shift right back to where there were in the first place.

With the credit-card-based system, the company knows what you're likely to spend money on over and over again. It's a much safer bet, at least from their point of view. They don't need to shift behaviors, only brands, which is a significantly easier marketing task.

Re:Not the same space as Groupon

[John3]

You are exactly the people that Groupon wants to reach. A business wants to appeal to a new customer with the deal, but not give away a super deal to existing customers. They want you to try a powerboat adventure, hoping you'll come back again at full price.

If you just go once, you'll have fun and save money.

Re:Not the same space as Groupon

[Anonymous Coward]

And that is up to the companies to actually figure out if the deal will be profitable for them or not. Think of Groupon as advertising for your company and proceed accordingly.

Re:Not the same space as Groupon

[marcosdumay]

Yep, I'll second AC here. It is up to the company to decide if they'll have profits for that sale or not, the GP didn't set the price. It can very well post some offers that just take away part of their profits, keeping them positive, as they can bet that a highter yeld due to the offer will make the reduced price lucrative. Or maybe it did hope that the GP would like so much that he would return, paying the full price. If it made the wrong bet, well, that happens a lot when betting.

Personaly, I don't see much utility at ads targeted at buying history. The time somebody is less willing to buy a car/house/television/plain ticket/phone/whatever is just after that person has brought a car/house/television/plain ticket/phone/whatever. Buying habits are much more dependent on the nature of the good than the nature of the buyer, and the dependence on the buyer is actualy much harder to discern than such kinds of schema would imply.

Re:Not the same space as Groupon

[zippthorne]

I dunno. The "typical" groupon deal is for 50% off. And groupon's commission is like 50%, too. How many businesses are still in profit territory at 25% of the asking price?

Which brings to mind an interesting point: Groupon is not so well established that they couldn't be unseated by an organization that realizes that a web site can operate with pretty thin commissions, and they might sell even more coupons if they restrict any added-on ad-copy to things that are just funny, rather than funny and insulting to the business making the offer. That business is, after all, their customer...

Re:Not the same space as Groupon

[wvmarle]

I agree with that. It's great for customers, not so great for businesses. And when I see the deals I often don't understand why they would participate.

I just bought a groupon for a fancy dinner for two, cost HK$338.00 instead of HK$1,036.00. So the restaurant gets only HK$169 for this dinner, which includes a bottle of wine. I can not imagine they can cover even the ingredients at this price, let alone staff and rent costs. It's been bought by 282 people so far, so the loss of potential revenue for the restaurant is a staggering HK$244,494 (US$ 31,345). OK virtually none of the groupon-buyers would likely have gone for the full fare menu (I for one wouldn't), still they must run a serious loss on this one. I hope they survive (it's way too far out of my area to keep an eye on the place, see whether it survives the upcoming six months).

Most ridiculous offers right now, virtual giveaways: laser hair removal: HK$688.00 instead of HK$16,250.00, and a men's slimming course at HK$899.00 instead of HK$14,160.00. Admittedly I didn't look beyond the headline but well it's a huge discount on offer.

I can't imagine those companies can make any profit out of that. Even if half of those customers remain then still they would have to have dozens of follow-up sales to those customers to make up for the loss. After all profit margins in such industries can't be too great: there is a lot of competition keeping prices competitive.

Re:Not the same space as Groupon

[marcosdumay]

I didn't know they made 50% in comission. Ugly fact...

About competition, there are plenty of groupon-like sites out there. It is just a matter of their clients discovering them. I don't know why they put up with that much just to anounce on groupon, but again, it's their decision.

Re:Of course.

[cvtan]

Citibank deserves to go out of business in the most horrible way possible.

Guess it's time to ditch the bank then

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many credit unions ready to accept me with open arms, and there are way more benefits when doing business with them.

Go fish?

[KreAture]

Isn't this like the game "go fish"?
Have any cat fanatics? 10!
Have any porn addicts? 10000!
And every response or query about more information, or even downloading of image-data for the ad, outs the users targeted by the bank on behalf of the banks spam-client.

If you can be accomplice to murder, you can sell private information by proxy too.

Re:Go fish?

[Penguinisto]

Unless the targeted users actually whip out a credit card, all you really get are a bunch of IP addresses, browser agent strings, maybe some cookies, and actual info from the few people dumb enough to fill out anything else you ask them to.

And the wheels of the greed bus...

[_0rm_]

go round and round... will someone please flatten the bank's tires already?

Banks plan to...

[Godman]

I love the sentence banks plan to..... it always fills me with hope for how their service is going to benefit me even more...
 

Uh. So?

[wasabii]

I fail to see any issue with this. The bank that owns my credit card has a list of the transactions I've made on it. And they are now going to send me spam targeting me based on those transactions. The bank has always had the information. The bank still has it. There is no privacy issue here.

What there might be is banks annoying their customers. That shouldn't be illegal. It should result in customers finding banks that don't annoy them. Or, if customers don't care, then whatever.

Another thing that puzzles me: I work in the credit union marketing industry. We sell insurance to members of credit unions. The credit unions send us a list of their members names and account numbers, we mass snail mail them enrollment forms for free offers (with potential to buy in for more.) We don't get transaction history. But that doesn't matter. We buy the user's profiles from Experian and other companies. I'd be amazed if banks didn't already do this, since we've been doing it for a decade. And we have lots of competitors. So... maybe their user profiles are going to be better and they'll not annoy people with products they definitely don't care about. Beats the status quo.

Re:Uh. So?

[Carnildo]

I fail to see any issue with this. The bank that owns my credit card has a list of the transactions I've made on it. And they are now going to send me spam targeting me based on those transactions. The bank has always had the information. The bank still has it. There is no privacy issue here.

Let's say I want to know who in your town has purchased pornographic videos. I go to the bank with a "buy one get one free" deal for my pizza parlor and have them send it to everyone who's purchased one or more porn videos. As people redeem those coupons, I build up a pretty good idea of who's watching movies they'd rather I didn't know about.

I can repeat this sort of thing with different deals and different criteria, and get a pretty good idea of what sort of information the bank has. Since the bank is kindly hiding the link between my coupons and your habits, you don't have any idea that I'm doing this.

Re:Uh. So?

[wasabii]

I got a free pizza out of the deal. I'm cool with this.

Re:Uh. So?

[canajin56]

Let's say I want to know who in your town has purchased pornographic videos. I go to the bank with a "buy one get one free" deal for my pizza parlor and have them send it to everyone who's purchased one or more porn videos. As people redeem those coupons, I build up a pretty good idea of who's watching movies they'd rather I didn't know about.

You never see a coupon. RTFA. You get a bill saying "Last month x people used a coupon, for a total of y dollars. y dollars + our cut, please." You cannot ever connect those numbers to customers. Not unless your pizza is so awful that only people with the coupon would get get two on the same day ;)

Re:Uh. So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a great scheme to "accidentally" overcharge advertisers due to "technical difficulties". It would require quite an elaborate approach to detect fraud by banks.

Re:Uh. So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's say I want to know who in your town has purchased pornographic videos. I go to the bank with a "buy one get one free" deal for my pizza parlor and have them send it to everyone who's purchased one or more porn videos. As people redeem those coupons, I build up a pretty good idea of who's watching movies they'd rather I didn't know about.

This is, amid all the hubbub, the only actual potential issue with the plan.

And it still relies on the consumer giving their personal information to the pizza place. Otherwise all the pizza place knows is that "We sell pizza to a lot of porn addicts". So if giving them your personal information is a requirement for redeeming the coupon (not legal in all states) then give them the middle finger instead, if it bothers you that much.

Re:Uh. So?

[toddestan]

How does this work then? The customer has to redeem their buy-one-get-one coupon at some point. In order to get the discount, the customer would have to present the coupon to the merchant, right?

The only way I can see where the merchant would not know would be a rebate type of system as opposed to a coupon, where the customer would purchase two pizzas (presumably having to use the bank's card to do so) for full price, then the bank gives a rebate for the cost of one of the pizzas back to the customer. (later, the merchant would have to pay the bank based upon the number of rebates given out) However, I see nothing to TFA to indicate that's how it works.

Even so, I could still see a system where the merchant could figure out who's using the coupon by making the deal only work a certain way. For example the coupon could be only good for two large pepperoni and mushroom pizzas with two 2-liter bottles of Sprite (to paraphrase a rather odd deal I actually saw the other day). Now, there's no guarantee someone who ordered that specific combination is using the coupon/rebate, but I would say the chances would be pretty good.

Re:Of course.

[Flyerman]

thoughts.com? is it goatse?

One company doing this...

[Anonymous Coward]

See Cardlytics at:

http://cardlytics.com/

cash is king

[Anonymous Coward]

it really is

Side channel information leak

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a side-channel leak of private information. The consumer gets targeted coupons delivered by the bank. At this point, no information has leaked from the bank to the retailer. The consumer decides to use the coupon. Now the retailer knows something new: This consumer is highly likely a match for the target demographic. The retailer did NOT have this information before. The coupon identifies the user as matching the criteria the retailer gave the bank.

Private information WAS LEAKED from the BANK to the RETAILER via the coupon delivered by the bank => consumer => retailer.

How is that NOT sharing information? Somehow because the consumer chose to use the coupon, does that constitute agreement by the consumer to share this information with the retailer? Will a disclaimer to this fact be included with the coupon?

Re:Side channel information leak

[Hartree]

Exactly. My example was spur of the moment, so not all that well formed. Given some thought, you can come up with more effective scenarios.

But regardless, you give information on at least some of the customers to the retailer (or whoever the retailer is fronting for).

Re:Side channel information leak

[AK Marc]

Somehow because the consumer chose to use the coupon, does that constitute agreement by the consumer to share this information with the retailer? Will a disclaimer to this fact be included with the coupon?

I would hope that to be legal, the coupon would have (in lettering the same size as the details of the coupon) a statement that "using this coupon will share information with the retailer that includes your shopping habits, account size, payment history, address, credit score, and any information we have about other accounts under your name or address." Short of that, this type of leak should be a felony landing the CEO in jail.

I chose to opt out

[blindseer]

I place a certain value on my privacy. I had one of those "loyalty cards" years ago at the nearby grocery. I'd use it to get the cheaper price on the stuff they sold me. In return I got a bunch of junk in the mail trying to sell me more stuff. When I stopped using the card I got less junk in the mail.

I had a credit card. In exchange for using the credit card the credit card company sent me stuff in the mail trying to sell me more stuff. They would also call me at home. How far and wide this information on my buying habits went hit me when I used my credit card at a gas station I don't normally visit and a couple weeks later I got a credit card advertisement in the mail from the gas station. I pay for my fuel and groceries with cash now excepting rare occasions when I forget to stop by the bank before my wallet gets too thin, then I pull out my debit card.

Not only does using cash prevent banks from selling my buying habits it also avoids the threat of my bank account information from being stolen with those hidden card readers that are popping up on gas pumps and the like. I don't even like to use ATMs any more. Not only is there a threat of my card getting copied by a hidden card reader the ATMs spit out only $20 bills. With a tank of gas costing over $60 and a grocery cart filled with food typically costing around $100 I prefer to see a real live teller so I can get $50 and $100 bills, that way my wallet doesn't get so fat and I can still buy what I need.

Now, I just wish those vending machines would take $2 and $5 bills. With a bottle of soda costing around $1.50 it makes sense to me to take the larger bills. This is also because I've had to not buy a drink because my wallet is full of $5, $20, and $100 bills.

All the crap in the mail, and the phone calls interrupting my supper, stopped for the most part once I got rid of my credit cards. Not using a debit or credit card for most purchases does mean a few more trips to the bank and having to pay for gas inside the station but that is a minor inconvenience. The bank is within walking distance of my house, and I'll often go into the gas station anyway when I travel to get a snack or use the restroom. It keeps the junk mail and cold calls down.

Re:I chose to opt out

[green1]

I have to admit that I use my credit card for pretty much everything, they pay me a cash dividend, and as I always pay my balance in full on the due date, they never charge me a penny of interest or other fees. It's convenient, and it saves me money.

I have received a total of 2 phone calls from the credit card company since signing up for the card 10 years ago. The first was them trying to sell me on a "premium" card with yearly fees. I declined and asked to stop receiving such offers. I've never been called for one again. The second was their fraud department, and they had legitimately flagged a purchase I didn't make, they refunded the purchase, cancelled my card, and couriered me a new one right away.

I have received 7 pieces of mail from the credit card company since signing up, 4 included new cards (initial card, replacement for the fraud case, replacement for expiry, "upgrade" to chip) the other 3 were offers to increase my credit limit (with no catch other than the responsibility that comes with being able to borrow larger amounts of money at a time)

I have never received a single ad by phone, mail, or email, that I have any reason to suspect has had anything at all to do with my credit card usage. The most I have ever had was the small box at the bottom of my monthly bill suggesting I upgrade to one of their "premium" cards with yearly fees, it's unobtrusive, and it's from the credit card company themselves, I always decline.

I don't know if Canadian privacy laws are just that much better, or if my bank is just a little less corrupt, but that's been my experience so far.

Re:I chose to opt out

[guruevi]

I must use a respectable bank (local Credit Union) because I never see any correlation between junk mail and the stuff I buy with my card, I don't get a whole lot of junk mail and cold calls on average once a month. I buy EVERYTHING with my card and get annoyed when stores don't accept cards and will actively avoid such stores where possible. I hate change as it usually gets put by the side until you either lose it or get it together and put it in one of those automated counters that spews out a gift certificate.

I do get more calls whenever I use my Bank of America card (only use it for online purchases from shady sites since I can dispute online as well) but I prefer not to use their services for anything else.

Re:I chose to opt out

[Anonymous Coward]

Paying the cash is great, even if inconvenient to cards, but I use a Visa Check Card all the time, and I don't see any of this, I even use the godless Bank of America, and we can all agree the biggest companies are the biggest abusers. In fact the majority of my financial junk mail comes from my mortgage company... Citibank.

Despite, the real reason you don't get calls at dinner time is mostly because that type of cold calling is illegal these days, not because you stopped using your CC. Not to mention, if you just add yourself to the DO NOT CALL registry and then add a credit alert to your account (it blocks random CC mailings and requires all companies to do extra checks before assigning lines of credit).

Re:I chose to opt out

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't even like to use ATMs any more. Not only is there a threat of my card getting copied by a hidden card reader the ATMs spit out only $20 bills. With a tank of gas costing over $60 and a grocery cart filled with food typically costing around $100 I prefer to see a real live teller so I can get $50 and $100 bills, that way my wallet doesn't get so fat and I can still buy what I need.

If ATMs only give you $20 bills, that means that the great majority of people paying cash use those. Therefore, by paying with $50 and $100, you become easier to filter out in the data.

Re:I chose to opt out

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if Canadian privacy laws are just that much better, or if my bank is just a little less corrupt, but that's been my experience so far.

No, it's because the parent wasn't paying attention and either failed to add, or remove, a checkmark from a box that says something like "Yes, I would like to receive promotional offers from blah blah blah" when they signed up for the account.

I've used credit and debit cards for over 20 years and the only junkmail/calls I get are the fault of people who I actually sign up with.**

**there was one occasion when a store in a small town sent me a direct flier in the mail, although I'd never given them any personal information. So I called and talked to their store manager (who was an extremely nice old lady) and she told me that their CC Merchant Services Vendor is the one who actually gave them the list- not the credit card company or the banks, etc. This is, by the way, extremely illegal for merchant processors to do in the first place, which that particular merchant found out the hard way after I turned him in to the Feds.

Re:I chose to opt out

[Errol backfiring]

Same here. But the banks have fought back. Banks are not open anymore outside office hours, so I have the choice to either take a day off to get my money or to use an ATM. Where I live, you cannot even bring cash to a bank anymore. You read that right: banks don't accept cash. Banks' terms of service include sections on how you MUST cooperate into investigations about where your money is from. And our government made a bank account compulsory for the payment of salaries. You are very lucky to live in a place that allows such free behaviour.

Re:I chose to opt out

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn to opt out, perhaps? We only use c/card for all transactions where possible, get a fat check 2 or 3 times a year, and we get almost no junk mail. The only mail that slips through are local bundled pages dropped to everyone by the USPS doing their rounds. We get no telephone calls selling, other that the annoying local solar company constantly trying to sell us a hot water system because we bought pool solar heating from them. That could be understandable, but we bought a hot water system from them at the same time.

Another reason to get rid of the mailbox

[schwit1]

It has become little more than a source of paper spam.

Re:Another reason to get rid of the mailbox

[Culture20]

You can request that bulk rate mail go to the round file at the post office. I did that and now only get real mail.

Re:Another reason to get rid of the mailbox

[or_is_it]

wow. does that really work? i can just go to the post office and tell them to not deliver bulk rate mail? color me curious.

Re:Another reason to get rid of the mailbox

[Culture20]

Ask your local post office if they have a form. If you're going to refuse bulk rate mail anyway, your letter carrier would rather toss it instead of carrying it twice (they dispose of refused bulk rate mail at the post office).

What's the difference?

[blair1q]

Marketer: What did blair1q buy last week?
Bank: I would be breaking the law to tell you that.
Marketer: Did blair1q buy a toilet brush last week?
Bank: I would be breaking the law to tell you that.
Marketer: If I were to send an email to blair1q asking him to buy my toilet brush, and cut you in if he does, would that be worth anything to you?
Bank: No.
Marketer: What if it was a turnip peeler?
Bank: Put the coin in the slot, please.

Rubbing your pencil over the pad to mark it with lead and expose the un-marked indentations that were left by writing on the previous sheet is about 150 years old as an intelligence-gathering trick.

Re:Of course.

[Duradin]

Pretty much. I've seen that link now in two other stories today.

This isn't really new

[Anonymous Coward]

There is very little that is new about this. I used to work for a credit card company and we had over 100 marketing campaigns per cycle. Inserts were placed in your bill based on your habits. It wasn't a coincidence that if you bought a camera one month, there was a coupon for lenses next to your bill the next month.

Re:This isn't really new

[yahwotqa]

At least that makes sense. My friend bought a plasma TV, and started getting offers for more plasma TVs.

Chase Bank

[spire3661]

did this to me at the ATM today. I COULD NOT complete my ATM transaction without agreeing or denying a 2% cash back on my card if i went to a certain local italian chain (i refuse to give them more advertising). I went in and asked for a feedback form. No point in yelling at a teller for something that she has no control over. I will also be sending a formal typed and mailed letter of complaint to Chase headquarters.

Re:Chase Bank

[stephathome]

I like that way of handling it. I pay no attention to the ads that come with any statements I get, not that I get many since paperless makes so much more sense. ATM ads are just annoying. Give me my cash without insisting I view a commercial - that's not why I put my money in a bank.

I also shop at a grocery store that doesn't have any of those obnoxious club cards. Funny thing, they just give everyone the discount and it works. They have better prices than the other stores around. Rare time that I want something from a store with a club card, I mess with their data and use my sister's number, my inlaws' number, whichever I have for that location.

Re:Chase Bank

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I also shop at a grocery store that doesn't have any of those obnoxious club cards. Funny thing, they just give everyone the discount and it works. They have better prices than the other stores around.

That's rare. My experience in New England has been that the chain without the loyalty cards (Market Basket) is the cheapest - even factoring in loyalty discounts and they've been kicking the asses of all the other chains that do push the loyalty cards (opening new stores while the others have been closing stores).

Same thing in the South where Publix has been kicking Winn-Dixie's ass for prices and customer satisfaction ratings (and profits).

I don't have the link handy, but there was a pricing survey conducted a few years back with one particular chain, in Arizona I think, of prices before they started pushing loyalty cards and then a year afterwards and they found that on average - even with the loyalty discount - prices were substantially higher.

Re:Chase Bank

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what chase is going to do, don't you? Absolutely nothing. You'll be lucky if anyone even glances at your comment before summarily discarding it.

Re:Chase Bank

[Anonymous Coward]

Good call. I was thinking I would definitely cancel any account that did this to me, buy you're right; it's only fair to give them one chance to promise never to attempt that scam on you again.

Re:Chase Bank

[guruevi]

I don't have those types of stores here (except Wal-Mart). But usually you can fill out all types of false information on those club cards, they'll give them to you regardless. You get the discounts and/or points but nothing in your mailbox.

Re:Chase Bank

[zippthorne]

But, those commercials are how they pay for the ATM. Otherwise, they'd have to charge you for transactions. You wouldn't want to have to pay the going rate for 1-2 milliseconds of cpu time and 10 s of power for a light-duty servo motor, would you?

Re:Chase Bank

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I don't have those types of stores here (except Wal-Mart). But usually you can fill out all types of false information on those club cards, they'll give them to you regardless. You get the discounts and/or points but nothing in your mailbox.

Unless you pay with cash every single time using fake info on the loyalty card won't help you, they will record your real info from your checking/debit/credit card and cross-reference it for all past and future purchases. Even playing "musical loyalty cards" with a bunch of other people doesn't help too much unless you swap cards frequently.

Re:Chase Bank

[Jstlook]

I would consider 'fair' behavior when they choose to honor their privacy agreement - not just the letter of the contract, but the spirit of it as well. If they've found they can make a buck on marketing, I don't see any reason to turn the other cheek. Call them up, ask for their superior, and let them know that you are cancelling your card / account because they chose not to honor the privacy policy you agreed to. Don't bother entitling them to another chance - but also don't allow your voice to get forgotten in the dregs of the front line - let it get to the people pulling the shots.

Re:Chase Bank

[ArsenneLupin]

What's wrong with accepting it, and not using it?

Or refusing it, for that matter...

If there was a third option "abstain", some people would probably still complain...

Re:Chase Bank

[martin-boundary]

Yeah but he'll feel better having mailed the complaint, and won't die prematurely of high blood pressure...

Re:Chase Bank

[oever]

Sarcasm noted.
Most of the price is in getting clean bills into the machine in a secure way and keeping them there until someone makes a transaction.
Still, I prefer paying for that instead of seeing advertising.

Re:Chase Bank

[Anonymous Coward]

did this to me at the ATM today. I COULD NOT complete my ATM transaction without agreeing or denying a 2% cash back on my card if i went to a certain local italian chain (i refuse to give them more advertising). I went in and asked for a feedback form. No point in yelling at a teller for something that she has no control over. I will also be sending a formal typed and mailed letter of complaint to Chase headquarters.

Pretty good response, but you should carry your own sandpaper to write on when sending feedback. That way they'll suffer at least a little when they wipe their asses with your comments.

Re:Chase Bank

[sorak]

I like that way of handling it. I pay no attention to the ads that come with any statements I get, not that I get many since paperless makes so much more sense. ATM ads are just annoying. Give me my cash without insisting I view a commercial - that's not why I put my money in a bank.

I also shop at a grocery store that doesn't have any of those obnoxious club cards. Funny thing, they just give everyone the discount and it works. They have better prices than the other stores around. Rare time that I want something from a store with a club card, I mess with their data and use my sister's number, my inlaws' number, whichever I have for that location.

Some grocery stores do not give the discount. I just read a suggestion that you tell them you have a card listed under the number 867-5309. If you live in a large enough area, someone probably has that listed as their number.

Re:Chase Bank

[Anonymous Coward]

what about the profits made loaning my money

Post offices need to get smart

[brim4brim]

And offer spam filtering services for regular mail, this is getting ridiculous. I can't imagine banks getting away with this in Ireland for long. One thing to be said for the parish pump politics.

Simple problem, simple solution...

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Customer does stuff
2) Bank notes this
3) Advertiser asks bank to send coupon to people who did that sort of stuff
4) Bank sends customer coupon

Up to this point, the banks' lawyers are right - there's no information going anywhere bad.

5) Customer uses coupon

Now, we are giving information to the advertiser about the customer. This is BAD, and possibly illegal.

Note on the one hand that it was the customer's action that led to the information leak.
Note on the other hand, however, that the customer does not know what information was to be leaked, and so cannot be said to have given consent. Consider if Macy's asks that a normal-seeming coupon be sent to people who shopped at kinkysextoys.com, using that coupon is in no way tied in the mind of the recipient to the information at stake.

So that's the problem. The solution? Include the relevant information with the coupon. That way, the customer knows what information they are giving to the advertiser, and can absolutely be said to be opting in at that point. This does run some risk of others reading the coupon, and so these coupons must therefore be treated with the same respect given to any other form of transaction history until the customer decides to disclose them publicly by using the coupon.

Re:Simple problem, simple solution...

[Anonymous Coward]

So that's the problem. The solution? Include the relevant information with the coupon.

No, the solution is to throw the ads in the trash (or shredder, if that's your thing) where they belong.

Re:Simple problem, simple solution...

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's what you're doing to ads anyway, then this isn't a problem for you in the first place.

I don't think you know any mormons.

[raehl]

Mormons operate much more like a cult than most major religions. There are significant consequences to not behaving the way the church wants you to behave.

Most of that is based on extensive social pressure. The Mormon church tries very hard to narrow your social existence down to just other mormons. They have special fellowship groups for mormon singles to make sure you're meeting and marrying other mormons. They have their own TV channel with programming they expect you to watch - and if you don't watch it, everyone at church will admonish you when they talk about what was on and you don't know what they're talking about. There is tremendous pressure to conform, and there is lots of programming that starts early. You know how women dream of the "perfect wedding"? Well, in the mormon church, they program you from a very early age to really want to be married at the mormon temple in Utah. Don't behave the way the church wants you to? No perfect wedding for you!

So, if you're a single woman and tell your catholic priest you're using birth control, he'll probably tell you the pope doesn't like it and suggest something else. If you tell your mormon church official that you're using birth control, they will require you to go to counseling about the evils of premarital sex and if you don't go, they will toss you from the church, which may very well result in all your friends and family refusing to continue to associate with you. And don't think that's limited to severe behaviors - I knew an (unmarried) couple pushed into intensive religious counseling because the church officials found out they were both laying horizontally on the same bed at the same time! (By, I believe, basically suggesting to the female half that she better be honest or god was going to smite her.)

Now, I have not interacted much with mormons in the past 10 years, so maybe this has all changed since then, but I doubt it.

So yeah, as far as the Mormon church goes, it is a totally different animal than most of the rest of your garden variety religions.

Re:I don't think you know any mormons.

[Anonymous Coward]

You definitely don't know any Mormons. You got things as correct as if you'd been writing about Methodists, Catholics, Muslims, etc. ...not even close, unless you treat gossip as truth.

Re:I don't think you know any mormons.

[Xaositecte]

It all really depends on the congregation. My Mormon friends tend to treat the fact that they do "bad things" much more seriously than friends of other faiths, and they've implied there are some pretty severe social consequences for it. In the mostly non-religious Pacific Northwest where I currently live, this is incredibly noticeable, because no other church does this.

However, I've also spent a little time in the Southern states (Mississippi and Georgia mostly) - and found a lot of "mainstream" christian denominations behaving the same way while I was there.

Also, even Mormon friends of mine who have left the church to go off and smoke and drink and have premarital sex or whatever tend to get welcomed back into the church when they want to come back. This usually happens once they find someone they want to get married to, and after that I tend to lose touch with them, so I'm not sure how it goes afterwards.

Re:I don't think you know any mormons.

[osu-neko]

Now, I have not interacted much with mormons in the past 10 years, so maybe this has all changed since then, but I doubt it.

That particular church, maybe not. But your response seems to indicate you believe every church is like the one you were familiar with. This has, as far as I know, never been true of any religion. Different congregations are different. Last one I knew had no problems with a single mother and her boyfriend, or her daughter being on birth control.

Re:I don't think you know any mormons.

[zevans]

The Mormon church tries very hard to narrow your social existence down to just other mormons. They have special fellowship groups for mormon singles to make sure you're meeting and marrying other mormons. They have their own TV channel with programming they expect you to watch - and if you don't watch it, everyone at church will admonish you when they talk about what was on and you don't know what they're talking about. There is tremendous pressure to conform, and there is lots of programming that starts early. You know how women dream of the "perfect wedding"? Well, in the mormon church, they program you from a very early age to really want to be married at the mormon temple in Utah. Don't behave the way the church wants you to? No perfect wedding for you!

Ah, so "Mormon" is a synonym for "middle-class."

Re:I don't think you know any mormons.

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

So, if you're a single woman and tell your catholic priest you're using birth control, he'll probably tell you the pope doesn't like it and suggest something else. If you tell your mormon church official that you're using birth control, they will require you to go to counseling about the evils of premarital sex and if you don't go, they will toss you from the church, which may very well result in all your friends and family refusing to continue to associate with you. And don't think that's limited to severe behaviors - I knew an (unmarried) couple pushed into intensive religious counseling because the church officials found out they were both laying horizontally on the same bed at the same time! (By, I believe, basically suggesting to the female half that she better be honest or god was going to smite her.)

Nice! You're definitely not right, but that's not why you're posting, is it?

Re:I don't think you know any mormons.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are way off base here. I am Mormon and NONE of this have I experienced. You may be referring more to the Reformed LDS church, which is NOT the LDS church but an offshoot that is very definitely cult like. I know many people who do not 100% follow the teachings of the church and they are still welcomed with open arms every time they attend church meetings. Yes they talk about things, but they do NOT apply heavy pressure to its members to get them to conform, nor do they kick members out who do not conform. Please do some basic research before you make such claims as you have.

Re:I don't think you know any mormons.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry. That glowing haze you're under will eventually wear off. That or it won't and you'll just go along merrily. Hope you have a happy, fulfilling life either way.

Just don't think that your definition of "heavy pressure" equates to my definition.

"I hope they call me on a mission
When I have grown a foot or two..."

Happy to be out.

Re:I don't think you know any mormons.

[Anonymous Coward]

actually i think you may not know any mormons. i was a mormon, even lived in utah for a time, and this is just completely overdriven crazy talk. yes, children are programmed to want to get married in the mormon temple to a perfectly righteous spouse. yes, they disapprove of pre-marital sex, but it's very, very rare they ever kick any one out for that. in my experience, the 'intensive religious counseling' was a 5 minute meeting with the local congregation leader (bishop) once a month or every other month to see how you're doing. never heard of any one except maybe my grandmother who ever watched the church's tv channel. now i'm an alcohol drinking atheist who lives with my boyfriend, and all my mormon friends that i've cared to keep in contact with are still good friends, and my family, though a bit disappointed, is still perfectly lovely. do mormons believe some crazy things? sure they do. but on the whole i think they're much more sane than most of the born again fundamentalist wackaloons that are taking over the country.

Re:I don't think you know any mormons.

[raehl]

Not right about the mormons, or the catholics? The catholics, maybe, I don't have a whole lot of personal experience there other than I don't know anyone socially ostracized from the catholic church for using birth control (or doing many other things catholics are not supposed to do.) That's definitely not the case with Mormons. There is very, very significant social pressure for mormons to conform, using many of the same mechanisms (although not necessarily to the same degree) as straight-up bonafide cults. (Not, of course, that other major religions and even other social groups don't have the same pressures, just not to the same degree.)

Simpsons, err, Offermatic already did it

[mattack2]

Summary says:

Banks plan to compete with Groupon and LivingSocial by targeting coupons and deals at credit card holders based on their shopping habits.

Offermatic already does this. Yes, it could arguably be "easier" if the credit card companies do this, but then one would have to go to different sites (if they have cards through multiple banks).

Okay

[MattW]

In the grand scheme of things, I'd rather get offers for stuff I want than stuff I don't. The world is filled with crap that wants my attention, and I generally ignore all of it.

So if you can target me, then that leaves even LESS attention for spammy untargeted stuff. If the net result is that:

- having me as a customer (as the bank) is more valuable because they can sell me for more and
- consequently spammy untargeted ads are less useful

I'll call that a win-win. The bank isn't getting any information about it they didn't have before. (And frankly, Groupon/Livingsocial already irritate the shit out of me with offers for facials/pedicures/tanning/teeth whitening, and other personal cosmetic garbage I don't want, and will never want.)

Tossing Technology Back

[Haedrian]

With technology trying to progress to 'moneyless payments', this'll throw it back a few years.

I'm sure lots of people won't want to get bothered with advertisments for using their bank card to pay for something. Instead they'll just draw the money and pay with cash. I know I would do that. This'll move the whole aim at using mobile payments or whatever back quite a bit.

When advertisers trust, it's all over

[erroneus]

So far, what has enabled nice things like adblock to work is that advertisers don't trust the people who host their ads. But in the case of facebook and apparently the banks now, advertisers are more willing to trust leaving people fewer options if they want to stop being a marketing target.

Re:When advertisers trust, it's all over

[Anonymous Coward]

>>So far, what has enabled nice things like adblock to work is that advertisers don't trust the people who host their ads.

I don't see in this scenario how the seller really has to trust the advertiser that much. If its pay per click, then the seller has to have the most trust in the advertiser. If its pay per purchase like done here its the advertiser who has to have the most trust in the seller. It's a real purchase. Give the advertiser their cut. It's basically a targeted, referral program.

Sounds more like banks getting into marketing biz

[Anonymous Coward]

Using your existing purchase history, the bank sends you an offer for one of their partnered businesses. The information does not leave the bank, unless you use the discounted offer.

Google

[Frankie70]

How is this anyway different from what Google does?

Re:Google

[arkane1234]

Google isn't a bank.

Re:Google

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't. They're just borrowing a good idea and running with it.

I Found A Vendor Who Does One Better

[damn_registrars]

I found a vendor online who seems to consistently manage to allow my credit card data - including my name, mailing address, and CVV number - to be compromised virtually every time I buy something from them. All kinds of worthless shit has been purchased in my name as a result, and my check card has been replaced no less than 3 times as a result.

To top it off some of the shit gets sent to me. Anyone want "Chinese" weight-loss green tea? Yeah, me neither. Although that wasn't as much of a pain in the ass as the time I had to call a Jewish dating site and tell them I did not want to run a personal ad on their site. They were at least willing to cancel the ad and refund the money, there was a different site who did neither, and none of the sites would give me the information that was on the ad that I was charged for.

On that note, I give Kudos to Blizzard software. One time my card was used to buy a bunch of WoW credits from their webserver. I contacted them, they immediately reversed all the charges and placed my card on the "do not accept charges from this card, ever" list; which is great as I have no interest in WoW.

Re:I Found A Vendor Who Does One Better

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you still buying from them? Why did you continue buying from them?

Re:I Found A Vendor Who Does One Better

[RJFerret]

Your compulsive purchasing single Asian Jewish alternate personality must be very disappointed.

(And suffering from WoW withdrawal.)

Re:I Found A Vendor Who Does One Better

[Anonymous Coward]

I found a vendor online who seems to consistently manage to allow my credit card data [...] every time I buy something from them [...] 3 times

Do you consider finding out what your card was used for and trying to get the money back to be some kind of hobby? Otherwise I fail to see why you would return to said store.

Re:I Found A Vendor Who Does One Better

[damn_registrars]

It took three purchases from that online vendor before I was sure that the compromise was always coming as a result of shopping with them. The first time, there was a delay between ordering from them and the result of my card being compromised; hence it was hard to tell exactly how my card was compromised. The second time was such a very different collection of purchases made on my compromised card that it didn't seem at the time to be related to the previous time of having my card compromised. The third time it happened quicker and for more money, but it wasn't until I noticed several websites of people complaining about this happening to their cards after buying from this merchant that I realized where the cause of the problem was.

And years ago I used to buy from these guys regularly without a problem. It was only more recent purchases from this fairly popular (for what they sell) merchant that have consistently lead to my card being compromised.

Re:I Found A Vendor Who Does One Better

[JimFive]

and placed my card on the "do not accept charges from this card, ever" list;

So, the fact that they are keeping your credit card number on a list, in a database, presumably as clear text, doesn't bother you at all?
--
JimFive

Re:I Found A Vendor Who Does One Better

[damn_registrars]

and placed my card on the "do not accept charges from this card, ever" list;

So, the fact that they are keeping your credit card number on a list, in a database, presumably as clear text, doesn't bother you at all?

Being as that card was cancelled before they did so, it does not. The WoW purchases were only one of many fraudulent purchases made on that card, so by the time I called Blizzard I had already had my bank cancel the card anyways. However it was useful because it meant that they would proactively cancel any pending charges that the person who had my numbers had setup to occur later, which my bank would have honored.

Two Words

[ironjaw33]

Credit Union.

That depends.

[raehl]

Did you know that movie theaters give away half-off tickets to... anyone who goes before 5 PM?

It doesn't seem that you understand price discrimination very well. Often times the best way to maximize profits is to find a way to charge lots of people what they're each individually willing to pay instead of trying to maintain the same price for everyone. Even if none of your groupon customers become repeat customers, you still upped your revenue. And you may have upped your revenue by a lot more than the cost of the groupon - that's why, for example, theme parks often practically give tickets away. Even if you don't pay them a thing to get in the park they'll still make money when you buy concessions.

Groupons won't work for every business, but anyone who insists that groupons are bad for businesses has a very limited understanding of business.

It's still spam

[msobkow]

I do not agree to be spammed by a bank. I'll go to another one if they start.

Where's the data being sold?

[wealthychef]

I think there is no data being sold. As the article itself points out, no data leaves the network, only ads go IN. I do see one bit of data has to leave the network: the user must have a cookie set or something that identifies that they are responding to the ad. The advertiser then connects the ad to your data -- but you are the one that gives your personal data. I just don't see a privacy breach here.

Technicality Busted

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok so the retailer generates 1 million codes, hands them over to Citibank whom only gives out 10,000 of them because they only have that many matched. At what point does a specific code link to a specific user, the only person who knows that is Citibank?

Re:Technicality Busted

[AK Marc]

At what point does a specific code link to a specific user, the only person who knows that is Citibank?

When they use the code to buy something, and thus are identified. A good ploy to require this is to force online purchases so nobody can pay in person with cash and get the deal with their unique code. Or, depending on the rules, have Citibank just distribute an image in their spam that leaks the information to 3rd parties directly when someone clicks on it. After all, if 3rd party leaks are allowed (necessary for the scheme this article is about), then this is exactly the same thing with just a little of the middle pulled out.

Re:Technicality Busted

[bluefoxlucid]

How did all you idiots get the fool idea that Macy's is going to have a [Non-Identified User]:[Specific Coupon Code] mapping? The bank goes, "We sent out offers. People clicked. We need 50 coupons." End of story. Macy's knows they sent out 50 coupons this time for these offers in this pool (maybe the bank doesn't tell them that, but they can still jockey the offers to differentiate the pools). They know the people showing up to claim are CitiBank customers. They know where they live because, well, you're either shopping locally or you're putting your address in online for delivery.

They have roughly the same amount of data mining space as sending out coupons to all addresses in a mass mailing, but with much fewer things to mail due to preoptimization.

Re:Technicality Busted

[AK Marc]

When is the last time you had a coupon with no code on it at all?

Don't have to out the customer (?)

[curio_city]

In your example, what you are really pointing out is that whatever percentage of customers click on the links, or even view the email with downloaded pictures, are revealing themselves and losing their privacy. In order for the bank to receive a commission it needs to admit that particular customer was indeed part of the chosen demographics.

There should be ways for the bank to get the kickback without the customer being identified specifically. A coupon could have a non-unique barcode to keep track of how many customers the bank sent the merchant's way without the coupon being specific to the client. Same goes for links in email; isn't it more trouble to have every click-through associated uniquely with an email?

Can someone clarify how viewing the email with downloaded pictures necessarily identifies the customer? I suppose my arguments would be moot if that was the case.

Re:Don't have to out the customer (?)

[EdIII]

Can someone clarify how viewing the email with downloaded pictures necessarily identifies the customer?

Simple. Rewrite rules in Apache. You can use them to uniquely identify each picture in the email and associate it with a uniqueid or campaign. All that matters is when the browser makes a request that the data is fed back to the browser in a way it expects. I do it all the time. IIRC, they sometime are specific white space markers called "tracking pixels".

A coupon could have a non-unique barcode to keep track of how many customers the bank sent the merchant's way without the coupon being specific to the client. Same goes for links in email; isn't it more trouble to have every click-through associated uniquely with an email?

It will more than likely be email. It's cheapest to implement. As for as non-specific goes that is impossible here. I, Bob Smith made a purchase of a XYZ at some company.com. If the bank wants to claim the commission they have to state what campaign it was (by virtue of billing the correct company) and that company would have all the profile information for that purchase transaction including, but not limited to, address, city, state, cc num, full name, email address, billing address, mailing address, user account credentials for purchase tracking and membership.

They can now link all of the information I provided them with the demographics they purchased.

Re:Don't have to out the customer (?)

[curio_city]

You can use them to uniquely identify each picture in the email and associate it with a uniqueid or campaign.

If the only trackers were for the campaign as I proposed, there shouldn't be an issue. Perhaps I should refrain from assuming this is what will happen though.

It will more than likely be email. It's cheapest to implement.

...

They can now link all of the information I provided them with the demographics they purchased.

Agreed, an online purchase would be difficult to claim without selling out the customer, which is why I was thinking more along the lines of a print-out coupon. The transaction itself, then, does not give the merchant free personal data, and neither should the bank claiming its commission. As long as actually obtaining the coupon does not require any loss of privacy.....

when is enough, enough?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's bad enough when the banksters collect compounded interest on non-existant fiat currency. When will their greed be satisfied?

It's still a violation.

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact it 'never leaves their network' is completely irrelevant

Banks suck

[Anonymous Coward]

Im disgusted the banks can do this

Gemma
www.visitbeautifulfrance.blogspot.com

ATM's

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds like i should start using ATM's more often, who knows i might get an offer for some free cash.

Re:Of course.

[TheRaven64]

Someone with a UID over two million, posts a one or two line comment with little content and a link, it's goatse. Or possible a rickroll or another shock site, but usually goatse.

Message to my banks

[Anonymous Coward]

If I notice you sell ANY of my data without my consent I will hang you with every bit of privacy and banking secrecy laws I can get my hands on - and not the cvil law bits, the criminal parts of it.

And I will organise that for others - not hard to do with a media background.

Just so you know.

(and no, I don't use Google or FB either - my info is my info, it's not yours to sell).

USA - sold to the highest bidder

[sloth jr]

For a good, prescient treatment of our current state, you could do worse by checking out Frederick Pohl's "Merchant Wars". Out-of-print, tragically, but worth looking for in the used stores.

Re:Of course.

[Whalou]

My clue was that the link was on the words "says that openly".

This isn't new - Barclaycard and Amex

[zevans]

Barclaycard's customers weren't interested in being sold a load of crap with their credit...

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cardsloans/article-1591611/Barclaycard-ends-Nectar-points.html

I almost never get junk mail!

[Anonymous Coward]

I buy everything with cash. I have credit cards, but I only use them for things like plane tickets or expensive items. When shopping at grocery stores, etc. I always use cash. I don't have any loyalty cards.

Consequently, I receive very little junk mail. Mostly locally-distributed flyers that they stuff in every box, once or twice a month.

Yes, I pay slightly more for my groceries and stuff, than I would if I belonged to all of these loyalty-card programs. But my privacy is worth more to me than a puny discount, and I'm not about to give them my purchasing habits so they can sell it to other

Another reason to like USAA

[chiph]

USAA's decision to not participate in this scam/scheme is nice to see, and reinforces my decision to get a card through them.
If you're eligible, go for joining.

Chip H.

A simple explanation

[dzfoo]

It's quite simple, and clever, and it works like this:

You bought those shoes in Nordstrom using your Citi debit card. Citi now know that information. What's more, they mine their database for all sorts of data that they then use to build up a profile of your shopping behaviour.

However, they do not share that information. What they do is quite coyly tell all merchants, "I have some customer info here... are you interested?"

Then Macy's contact Citi and say, "I want to attract new customers. I'll gladly pay you if you give this 25% off offer to people who bought shoes somewhere else during the past 3 months. The coupon has a unique identifier to, hum, avoid duplicates and fraud."

Likewise, JC Penny's call Citi and ask, "How much for you to give around my 10% coupons to all females that bought three pairs of shoes during the past 6 months, and also like eating at fancy restaurants? Oh, that code on the coupon? That's just for us to track the offers and ensure consistency, no worries."

Citi then gladly accepts the money and the offers. It delves into its database and mines all customers and finds that you are a female that has bought three pairs of shoes in the last 6 months, and looky here, you've eaten at some upscale restaurants quite a bit, often paying more than $200.00 for a meal. All that is on record, since you use your handy and convenient Citi card. You're the perfect customer for those offers!

One day, you check your e-mail and find some nice offers. Very nice ones, indeed (20% off on shoes at Macy's? More for your collection, yay!). So you buy some shoes at Macy's, proudly extend your coupon to the cashier, along with your credit card, and relish on your good fortune.

The cashier scans the coupon, along with its special identifying code, and the computer recognizes it as the one issued for that special offer deal with Citi. Your credit card record is now easily correlated to the specifics of that offer.

Notice that at no time did Citi had to give away any of your details directly to its partners, yet they were able to get them (or at something very close to them) indirectly.

That night, you check your e-mail and find a coupon for JC Penny's: 10% off shoes. My, you can't believe your luck!

          -dZ.

Re:A simple explanation

[bluefoxlucid]

Yes and all they know is that you're in a demographic. You bought shoes that aren't work boots... you probably buy shoes. Macy's usually sends out a catalog including that stuff to anyone who purchases from them anyway, and they'll ... send one to you. Why would they do anything different? Doing all that work based on demographics is a pain, mainly due to having to print other shit; blasting the full catalog at anyone in their sights works better. Special offers? Weekend sale, you come this weekend or you don't come at all.

Re:A simple explanation

[canajin56]

Look, you think it works one way. I think it works another. In my opinion, the merchant never sees a coupon, because the bank issues the rebate offer, and the bank honors the rebate offer. Now, I think my opinion is a bit more valid because I READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE and YOU ARE PULLING SHIT OUT OF YOUR ASS. But that's just me. Maybe the article is full of lies, and you know the honest truth. We'll see, I suppose?

Re:A simple explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, you think it works one way. I think it works another. In my opinion, the merchant never sees a coupon, because the bank issues the rebate offer, and the bank honors the rebate offer. Now, I think my opinion is a bit more valid because I READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE and YOU ARE PULLING SHIT OUT OF YOUR ASS. But that's just me. Maybe the article is full of lies, and you know the honest truth. We'll see, I suppose?

I just reread the article and I don't see any mention of a rebate. Only this:

banks plan to allow advertisers to send deals and coupons to their customers based on what they've bought before

So if it's only a rebate, why are there coupons?

Oops Racism

[TangoMargarine]

I thought the headline said "Blacks Find Way To Sell Consumers' Shopping Data" and did a double-take :-/

CASH..$$

[cayenne8]

Yet another reason I'm doing most all transactions I can with CASH.

Re:CASH..$$

[tunapez]

Yup. And I am re-instituting my check handling fees...what are they up to now, $6 to satisfy their clients instrument of debt? Wow, I wish I could double dip for all my services. Of course I would have to be psychotic and earnestly believe I am entitled to cheat my customers out of any cent I could grasp through wheedling, misrepresentation and/or manipulation.

Correction: Triple dip: account fees, gains from account balance leveraging and check processing fee.
God Bless America, Land of The Fee!

Does not stop tracking from the bank's client...

[Anonymous Coward]

Most ads contain an "Impression Tag" that often reports back browser information. I would find this a direct way of identifying the audience and a direct violation of my privacy.

And Groupon is a piece of crap too

[dosun88888]

1. This is horrible, and I'm thinking that the term "going postal" will be replaced by "going bank" after people get pissed off about this.

2. Groupon is the most worthless piece of crap because of which I've ever been forced by my wife to do things. Deals are only marginally better than deals already available at the locations that you can't use if you're paying with a Groupon ($50 groupon for $25, and half off deals all over the menu on a regular basis that are only for normal people without the damn groupon), and there's a time limit on Groupon so there's a risk of attrition and a certainty of doing something when I don't want to do it.

Wow this pisses me off.

My bank starts doing this

[Anonymous Coward]

... and I'm out. They already charge for the (their) previledge to use my money for their own good. I remember the days when the deal was: give us your money, we pay interest. Now it's more like: you can pay us for anything we do and say, and we will hold everything we know against you if we choose to do so...

My prediction

[slave_to_coffee]

early 2012: packaging of user data into securities
mid 2012: derivatives on these securities
late 2012: crash
early 2013: SEC orders Americans to stop using their names until bankruptcy courts sort out ownership issues

Getting information about a user this way=simple.

[nixkuroi]

Coupon 1 - 75% off Geritol sent to people who have bought Always Panty liners.

Result: Redeeming person is probably an older woman.

Coupon 2 - 75% off cannondale mountain bike to anyone having donated to the RNC.

Result: Probably young Affluent Republican

Forget about it if you can base it off more than one purchase or store locations.

Coupon 3 - 50% off diapers for anyone who has purchased pregnancy test && maternity clothes || co-pay on prenatal meds && made purchases near Redmond Town Center && pays rent in this apartment complex.

result: I now know there's likely a woman who's had a baby who lives in Redmond Washington in Shadowdale apartments.

Data mining can make these kinds of correlations not hard, especially if someone can use location and multiple criteria (as they can in Facebook). You don't need to have the personal information from the bank. Based on the products they buy from the coupon and the previously purchased products and store locations (think local stores with few or one location), you get a good idea of who they are PLUS if they use the coupon, you're probably getting their name as a part of the credit card transaction online.

So hello Mrs. Scott in Shadowdale apartments, how's your baby? Chances are they were healthy because you were on those pre-natal pills. Would you like to buy some life insurance? Sorry Mrs. Jensen, your baby is on formula, we're going to pass.

Flip the beast

[Anonymous Coward]

Until everyone realizes that privacy is only an issue where there is no relevance nobody will be able to target offers effectively without appearing to wail a sawed-off shotgun. If advertisers simply realized that privacy is NOT an issue provided you give me relevant offers – then I'll gladly give up some of my information. Unfortunately, advertisers and brands are still trying to market by using the hoodwink methodology. It seems everyone is forgetting that the consumer is in control and the sooner brands, advertisers and the proctors of data realize this – the quicker marketers will benefit from having their customers as willing participants in promotions and offers as opposed to "targets."