Mastercard, Visa To Help Target Ads

New submitter ThatsMyNick writes "The two largest credit-card networks, Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc., are pushing into a new business: using what they know about people's credit-card purchases for targeting them with ads online. 'A MasterCard document obtained by the Journal outlines some of the company's plans, which included linking Web users with purchases. According to document, the credit card provider said it believes "you are what you buy." ... Visa is planning a similar service, which would aggregate its customers' purchase history into segments, including location, to make ads more effective at appealing to people in a respective area.'"

Comments

Do not want

[Spy Handler]

I'm for small government and as much a libertarian as anyone here, but this is one of those times where the government needs to step in and put some regulation in place.

We need something similar to the do-not-call-list thingie they did a few years ago for telephone numbers, where you opt yourself in and you don't get hounded at home from telemarketers.

Re:Do not want

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Good, slowly you are realizing that, once the government is shrunk small enough to be drowned in a bathtub, the first thug who could, would. After that who is going to protect you, Mr Individual Q Liberty? Yourself? Armed gangs? Would these armed gangs who could take down a thug who could drown a government will respect YOUR rights?

Affected by Intermediaries

[elwin_windleaf]

I would be curious to see what effect services like PayPal would have on the ability for credit card companies to sell your data to advertisers. Do they still receive the relevant data, or is that retained at PayPal's level?

Granted, there's also nothing to prevent PayPal from doing the same thing with the customer data it collects. Back to gold doubloons handled with gloves, I suppose...

Well FUCK.

[JustAnotherIdiot]

make ads more effective at appealing to people in a respective area

Please, please no...I hate this place and the people in it with a passion, the last thing I want is to be bombarded with the bullshit they buy -.-

Re:If you have nothing to hide

[Hope Thelps]

Some people do have (perfectly legal) things they want to hide for whatever social or practical reasons.

Some of us have 'things we want to hide' (or what we would cause 'a desire for privacy') for no social or practical reason, and find it weird that anyone would think that needs a justification.