Google Following Your Offline Credit Card Spending To Tell Advertisers If Their Ads Work (consumerist.com) 147
One of the new tools Google has announced for its advertisers today promises to tie your offline credit card data together with all your online viewing to tell advertisers exactly what's working as they try to target you and your wallet. Consumerist reports: That return, for decades, was hard to measure in all but the most vaguely correlative of ways. Did people buy your product after seeing your TV ad? After seeing your billboard? On a whim after seeing neither? Who knows! But in the age of highly targeted, algorithmic advertising, the landscape is completely different. The apps on your phone know what you looked at and when, and can tie that in to what you see on other devices you're also logged into their services on (like your work computer). Meanwhile, you're leaving tracks out in the physical world -- not only the location history of your phone, but also the trail of payments you leave behind you if you pay with a credit card, debit card, or app (as millions of us do). Google also introduced some offline measurements to its online tool suite back in 2014, when it started using phone location data to try to match store visit location data to digital ad views. But a store doesn't make any money when you simply walk into it; you need to buy something. So Google's tracking that very granularly now, too. "In the coming months, we'll be rolling out store sales measurement at the device and campaign levels. This will allow you to measure in-store revenue in addition to the store visits delivered by your Search and Shopping ads," Google explains to advertisers. That's very literally a collection of spending data matched to the people who spent it, matched in turn to people who saw ads.
Is this related to the rewards surveys? (Score:5, Interesting)
They give me $0.30 for answering if I went somewhere and used a credit card.
Re:Is this related to the rewards surveys? (Score:4, Informative)
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I've never given google my phone number before...they ask but I never give them one. I'm sure this is a stupid question, but when I set up a gmail account on the mail app on my phone, does that some how give them my phone number?
Re: Is this related to the rewards surveys? (Score:1)
If a friend of yours who uses google has your phone number in their contacts list, google knows your phone number.
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They asked to use my location to improve "the experience " I said yes.
It has improved my experience, but also told them a lot, then they give me surveys, and I tell them more for money. Nothing has been sneaky though, it's all very up and up.
They let you look at the data and delete it too.
The places they ask if I've visited are clearly based on my location, I say no and get $0.10, or yes and get more questions. When they follow up it's either about seeing an ad or if I used a credit card, I those are worth
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About $3/month for the questions I'm willing to answer over the last year and a half.
It was front loaded though, the first two weeks were about $6 each or so.
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You can disable location history, switch to GPS only and use OsmAnd.
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I'm not aware of these surveys. Is this the only way Google has of tracking my offline purchases? My first thought was how Google would have access to that information? I just now read that credit card companies sell anonymised data to advertising companies. I'm going to bet that Google is able to attribute my data to me personally with a high degree of accuracy rendering the "anonymous" part useless.
I'm wondering if in the face of such algorithms, that perhaps it should no longer be legal to sell this data
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My first thought was how Google would have access to that information?
My guess is that it's from the retailers themselves. They have an interest in understanding how well their online advertising campaigns are working, and by providing information to Google they can "close the loop", seeing exactly how their online ads did or did not turn into sales.
If this is about closing the loop on item advertising (rather than store brand advertising), it really has to be provided by the retailers, because only they have the item-level detail. The credit card issuer knows how much you
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All the more reason to use services such as ApplePay. The retailer gets no information. They just get paid. They don't know your card number, they don't know your name.
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Is this why every sales clerk these days asks for an email address whenever you buy something with a credit card?
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Is this why every sales clerk these days asks for an email address whenever you buy something with a credit card?
I haven't encountered that. I would guess that is more so they can email promotions to you.
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It's amazing how little people will sell their personal data for.
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I smoke and live by a Walgreen's, common sense says I've used a credit card their recently, I'd hardly call it personal.
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You lie well then.
They put trick questions in to get you.
Cash (Score:2, Insightful)
I always use cash. Same reason I use a pad of paper and pen / pencil for taking notes. Its easy and always works. Sometimes the best tech is low tech.
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Like on an airplane?
how about online?
even excluding online, I've had more times cash didn't work that day card over the last six months.
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That day = than a
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More of an issue with attention to detail on a mobile device when posting to /. than it is brain damage.
My sufficient, but less than average, brain is fortunately undamaged.
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Cash is good. I also disable my phone tracking.
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Re:Cash (Score:4, Interesting)
You have wifi disabled? They mapped all those SSID's for a reason...
Why yes, yes I do! Both data and WiFi are turned off on my phone unless I need to check my email, (via K-9 Mail and on my own domain - screw Gmail), or do a web search or a SoundHound search. As soon as I'm done, I turn them off again. The stores I go into get SFA from my phone. Even when data is on, location is disabled, so their best fix on me is via tower triangulation; and I only use WiFi at home or at friends' houses.
Yes, they can still track me, but they can track other people a lot more easily and with much greater granularity. I try not to be the low-hanging fruit among all of the living, breathing, oblivious 'products' that surround me.
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Gotta love the solipsism that comes with believing yourself interesting enough to be watched so closely.
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We are all being watched closely, google and other corporations don't descriminate.
It's up to the individual to choose how to deal with that.
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Everyone is interesting enough to be watched so closely if the cost of watching someone is nearly nothing.
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I always use cash. Same reason I use a pad of paper and pen / pencil for taking notes. Its easy and always works. Sometimes the best tech is low tech.
Cash is at best a temporary solution for anonymity. Virtually all stores have security cameras and as facial recognition software becomes cheaper and more accurate, you can be sure retailers will start using it to track your purchases. And if there are cameras in the parking lot they can see your license plate too.
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Haa! I ride a bicycle! Another tracker thwarted!
But really, there are means to control every mechanism they put in place if you really want to remain anonymous. Do I care about the facial recognition, meh not really. Wait for it, in a couple of years when holography comes into play and facial features can be distorted with ease.
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as facial recognition software becomes cheaper and more accurate, you can be sure retailers will start using it to track your purchases.
So wear a mask to protect your face from privacy invasion by automatic-recognition cameras.
And if there are cameras in the parking lot they can see your license plate too.
I suppose you could catch a ride with someone else, hire a taxi, or someone else to do your shopping.
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If they work as designed, they will probably be outlawed as they specifically interfere with police body cams/patrol car cameras. Just my guess though.
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All the more ironic considering that the Unknown Comic himself couldn't get arrested.
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http://boingboing.net/2017/05/... [boingboing.net]
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What ads?
I rarely watch TV and I use an AdBlocker and the few ads that comes through never makes me want anything anyway.
As a retailer... (Score:2)
As a consumer, I use cash.
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Ditto, got rid of all credit cards years ago. Actually started writing checks again. Who da thought.
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What is this "writing" you speak of? Is there an app for that?
Can't remember when I last handled a check tho.
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Hey, AC! Ever heard of "Amazon"?
Credo (Score:5, Insightful)
Google turned evil so gradually I didn't even notice.
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If you ever thought email was anything more than a postcard, you're sadly mistaken. That dates back to 1991, when it was generally accepted that all email was effectively postcards and something like PGP provided the security of an envelope. (I date it to 1991, because that's when the first effective "envelope" for email came into being)
For mail comparison, the USPO photographs all mail front and back. They'll even kindly send you a photograph of your mail that's to arrive shortly. The Ben Franklin initia
Sooner or later all publicly traded companies do (Score:3)
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they have to. Because it's taken as a truism in business that companies must do everything in their power up to the limits of legality to advance the shareholder's interests.
That statement is so yesterday. "Limits of legality" don't apply any more. Prime example: Uber, but they're just the most high-profile of the many companies that just don't care about what's legal and what's not.
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Google could be much, much more evil if they wanted to be. Microsoft was much more evil, then went kinda okay, and is now quite evil again.
The idea that all companies have to be maximum evil, up to the limit of the law, is silly.
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This will allow advertisers to know which ad techniques are actually effective, nothing more. I'm sure all the data is anonymous.
How can you object to an ad company learning to play you like a violin?
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I pay with Bitcoins so nobody can trace my transactions!
Re: Privacy? What privacy? (Score:2)
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if you pay for everything in cash you are probably automatically becoming a suspect
8% of American households have no one with a bank account or credit cards, and do everything in cash.
Nope (Score:3, Insightful)
"The apps on your phone know what you looked at and when, and can tie that in to what you see on other devices you're also logged into their services on (like your work computer)."
No, they don't, because I don't load up my phone with all that useless bullshit. The apps that aren't in use get disabled and/or deleted.
"Meanwhile, you're leaving tracks out in the physical world -- not only the location history of your phone"
No, I'm not because I don't turn all that battery-sucking GPS and location crap. I also don't turn on wifi except in a few specific locations. Yes, they can track me via cell towers, but it's rarely going to tie my purchases to anything identifiable because most of the time I use cash. Track that, you fuckers.
"but also the trail of payments you leave behind you if you pay with a credit card, debit card, or app (as millions of us do)."
Millions might, but I'm not one of them. Suck it, Google.
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You're doing things the hard way.
I just use a flip phone. It makes phone calls. It has an address book to remember numbers. That's pretty much it.
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You're doing things the hard way.
I just use a flip phone. It makes phone calls. It has an address book to remember numbers. That's pretty much it.
Yep, I have to admit, I liked my old flip phone. No chance of getting infected, the batteries lasted forever, and it just worked. Plus they're rugged as hell. I with they made a good water-resistant flip phone.
At the same time though, I have to admit that there are times when I appreciate some of the stuff my new(er) phone can do. I recently moved from a Samsung Rugby Pro to a Samsung S5*, and I'm getting ready to root it so I can delete some of the extraneous junk it shipped with. That and I need to keep t
Re: Nope (Score:2)
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There is nothing that a smart phone can do that my flip phone can't that I want a phone to do. If I want to take pictures, I'll get my (more expensive than any smart phone) digital camera. If I want to cruise the internet, I'll fire up my (cheaper than any smart phone) net book. If I don't have WiFi access, I don't need to get on the internet where I am. If I want to play a computer game, it will almost certainly be a game not available on phones anyway.
Sure, more of that requires knowing in advance I'll wa
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I think you may have mixed up your metaphors a bit at the end there.
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No, in fact I don't. A chicken with its legs cut off goes nowhere, fast.
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I rarely use the web on my phone, but it's damn handy to be able to do so if I want. As for a camera, yes, my digital camera takes great photos, but I have to admit, so does my phone. In the end I'd rather carry one device rather than three, but the main thing is that I control what it does and when.
So far the battery on my S5 lasts for several days because I have all the unnecessary crap turned off. But those things are there if I need them, and that's kind of cool. The only downside (for me) is that it's
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I use just one app on my smartphone, unfortunately it's a total privacy bitch: Google Maps. Even if you don't turn on location services.
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Next time I checked facebook on my laptop, I was getting motorbike clothing ads.
As an Adblock user, I'm not sure what you mean by "ads".
Re: Nope (Score:2)
Unless you use a burner number (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want to sound like an Apple shill, but the reason so many merchants and CC companies don't like apple pay is that it hides this info from the network and point of sale.
I'm even suspicious of one-time numbers from the CC company since that company knows who you are.
Don't be evil (Score:2)
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I'm sorry but "dobeil" is a crappy slogan.
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They dropped the "don't". Or even better, the red circle with a diagonal over the word "don't"
I would be far more impressed (Score:5, Interesting)
if Google also implemented a mechanism by which I can tell advertisers that I would have bought their products if their ads hadn't be so stupid, annoying and intrusive that they offended me.
Seriously. They need to be told this. Often.
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And if pigs had wings, we'd all be covered in cinnamon flavored unicorn poo.
Mind you, that's what they believe, sure. But then, stupid people believe a lot of stupid things.
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There is no mechanism by which they can measure "I will never buy your products because your ads are stupid and offensive," unless they rise to the level of boycotts (which are normally politically motivated, and which normally have the exact opposite effect intended by the boycotters).
About 99.999% of ads on TV these days amount to "Our products are intended for mentally retarded people, so if you're mentally retarded, buy our worthless shit." Since I'm not mentally retarded, I don't buy their shit. How me
Slow Down There (Score:2)
Reading the article, it seems Google buys data from 3rd parties to get anonymized data on credit/debit card use at stores; they only get how much was spent rather than an itemized list of what was purchased. If someone spent $1 at McDonalds, what did they buy? Something off the dollar menu, but more specifically, who knows. Someone spent $10 at a dollar store; what did they buy? Could've been anything. Unless items are priced uniquely, you're not going to have much luck guessing what they bought if the shop
relatively certain it would be forbbiden in eu (Score:2)
Online advertising doesn't work (Score:3)
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If that's the case, they're never going to tell anyone. They'd be out of business in a hurry if they did. If anything, they're going to bury this and/or mould it into good news as much as possible. I can't imagine how terrifying it would be to find out that your entire business model doesn't work well.
My guess would be that online advertising works a bit, but not anywhere near as well as anyone thinks it does. But it works just well enough for some companies that it seems worth doing to most other
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Online advertising doesn't work and Google now has hard data to prove it.
Google's financial success is directly attributable to the fact that Google has hard data to prove that online advertising does work, and exactly how well specific ad campaigns are working. Combining click data and online retailer site analytics allows Google to tell advertisers exactly how their ads are working (or not). That same level of information hasn't been available for brick and mortar retailers who advertise online though. This seems like an effort to fix that.
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Having data that proves something and producing data that proves something are two differing things. One is science and the other is pseudo-science.
In this case it has nothing to do with science, just business. Google produces data for advertisers that proves their ads are working (or not, as the case may be).
An old approach to advertising (Score:2)
Companies with enough advertising budget can figure it out for themselves "the hard way". Let's say that a specific widget sells X per week.
The company runs a series of ads with a radio station. Did sales increase enough to cover the cost of the ads, and then some?
A few months later, they'll try with another radio station, or a TV station, and look at what happens to weekly sales figures.
Similarly, they can launch an online ad campaign, and see what happens. The company will stick with whatever strategy wor
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Online advertising doesn't work and Google now has hard data to prove it.
Google's financial success is directly attributable to the fact that Google has hard data to prove that online advertising does work, and exactly how well specific ad campaigns are working.
That is an article of faith, not a fact.
Advertisers seem convinced otherwise, and not just because Google says so, but because their own profits say so.
Advertising doesn't work on me (Score:1)
Just saying..
How do they know a purchase is response to an ad? (Score:3)
To take an example from the article, just because you saw an ad for a coffee and then buy one the next day at somewhere near your work does not necessarily mean that the ad has influenced you. It could, for example, be that you always (or frequently) buy that coffee from that location on your way to work or during your lunch break. Nor can they tell if an ad has a negative effect. You intend to buy an X and there is a choice of brands/models, you might see an ad and that ad make you not consider the particular brand/model being advertised.
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How do they know a purchase is response to an ad?
They don't necessarily, but in most cases it probably is in response to the ad, and even if it's not they can attribute it to the ad for lack of any other data. After all, if they can show that a purchase was made in response to an ad that was purchased through Google, that will mean the company is more likely to advertise through Google in the future.
How does Google get credit/debit card data? (Score:2)
Are the banks & CC companies sharing all of their transaction data with Google?
"youâ(TM)re leaving tracks out in the physical world â" not only the location history of your phone, but also the trail of payments you leave behind you if you pay with a credit card, debit card..."
Yes, but how does Google acquire the data from the credit & debit cards to match up with the data you give them by using your smart phone? The article isn't clear on that point. Google might know you saw the ad
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Let's help them (Score:2)
I'm not sure if they're getting data directly from Visa/MC, but why not just let them have it. Make all that data available through a REST API. We obviously can't stop them from tracking us, so why not let them just have out data easily -- and get the data ourselves while we're at it.
Sure, you can download spending data from some banks, but it's not easy. Why not require that banks and/or vendors make every single non-cash transaction available, including itemized details rather than just totals, available
All the more reason to use cash (Score:1)
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Well, if you are going to just stand like that in the privacy of your own bedroom, you really should expect Google to drop a load in you... You should be pleased that they didn't also fill your mouth.