FTA: "Google says it has access to roughly 70% of U.S. credit and debit card transactions through partnerships with companies that track that data."
Wow.
Wow.
As a result, everything else that is moving media is surrounded by spam. Even if you pay 60 pound for a premium service (Think how much money it is, even if you have infinite money), you will spend 1/3 of that time watching Adverts.
It is like a Freemium Game Model but when you pay, it doesn't matter.
I have no idea why people are so careless with their time. Now that I ditched TV/Film, and found other ways to fill that time, I honestly feel better within myself. I twiddle around with robots while listening to the 20 hour audiobook (of your 90 minute film), or try to grow Carrots with some weird automated soil probe remotely at an Allotment.
Compared to the enjoyment I get from these time fillers, motion picture is honestly the lowest form of entertainment and the lest rewarding.
Other than those sorts of situations though, Visa/MC or the bank issuing the cards only know where the transaction occurred and how much it was and don't directly get SKU-level data on what was purchased barring some other sort of partnership with the merchant.
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160517006038/en/Viac...
They used to have a "Business Intelligence Group" which acted as a Consulting firm to corporations who want to answer questions like "Where should my company set up more stores?" The group often sifted through their customer data to answer that question.
Cash is an anonymous payment system which cannot be traced and is widely accepted. It's something that would be impossible to bootstrap today if it didn't already exist. Hence, it's crucial to keep it alive.
I just wanted to point out the possibility of tracking serial numbers on bills. Obviously it's not going to be as reliable, at least not now, but it could be made more so; for instance, if there was a sudden movement to use more cash for privacy. Of course, that seems unlikely; most people like the convenience of plastic/digital payments, and there's a lot of market pressure pushing people toward those payment methods, so deploying the infrastructure for more reliable cash tracking probably isn't worth a whole lot. But I haven't exactly run the numbers, and there are other possible incentives, so who knows..
Ironically I started to appreciate it, after I received a fake bill from a different store.
Not really; bills are individually identifiable and can be tracked by either party to the transaction, and even if the payment medium isn't tracked, the transaction can even tracked by other means (e.g., cameras + facial recognition.)
It's only really untraceable if you assure privacy of the location of the transaction, and neither party to the transaction chooses to track it, and even then if the next party out on either side is tracking, a lot can be revealed.
It's mostly older people using cash anymore.
For example, if you start having kids, and going into their sporting events or whatever, you'll find that any form of electronic payment is most likely not accepted in the pop-up cafeterias ran by parents. No cash? No coffee for you.
Cash is still a handy way to give your kid some money to spend. I know some people already get their second graders a debit card with a monthly allowance, though.
But yes, about 99.5% of the transaction volume in my household is electronic.
The primary use of cash is shopping in Christiania.
Doesn't have to be a silver bullet. Just to be better off than without cash.
I was responding to “the only way to break the circle is to purchase with cash”, which just is not enough if your goal is to not end up in a database with your buying behaviour tabulated and analysed. Better? Clearly. But it is neither sufficient nor necessary to break the circle.
That means a safe way I and a lot of people prefer is to get a bunch of cash from a cashpoint and use that to buy stuff to not get profiled...
My main gripe with shopping in Germany is everyone is standing there at the cash-register trying to find the correct ammount of cash to pay. There is a large amount of different coins you have to sorth through and they all look similar to me. But everyone does it (even the young) because everyone cares about privacy.
(b) it’s not necessarily about Trump – but considering the US has elected Trump, and considering how many freedoms Trump has tried to erase already, what’s if someone worse comes after Trump?
Only a problem for non-Eurozone visitors really.
I think the problem with long waiting queues at cash-registers isn't the amount of different coins but the people that 1) do not calculate what the need to pay 2) want to speak with the sellers because they have nobody else they can speak to
But that's all a thing of personal attitude: Do we always have to be fast at everything what we do? Do we always need to optimize everything and use every free minute? In my opinion the laxness comes with age and who knows if we will do the same things in some years that we are hating others for today?
We don't know Walmart's feelings, they may like the arrangement. Business go cash free for all kinds of reasons. Customers that use credit spend more money than cash customers. Walmart probably isn't one of those places that benefit as much as a pub but they may have a small credit spending boost that covers the fees.
Walmart is a really smart and data driven company and I'm sure they've weighed their options about what is effective business practices for them.
[0] http://time.com/money/3541247/apple-pay-walmart-current-swip...
And as mentioned elsewhere, cash has a cost as well (theft, miscounting change, counting in and out cash drawers during shift changes, arranging daily deposits, trips to the bank, etc). As someone who worked retail 10+ years ago, I can assure you all these things happened, and probably added 2-3% to costs vs electronic payments.
That last article quotes it at up to 3% but most say 2%, so I am assuming there is a percentage and a fixed cost, and possibly a cap. In any case Walmart had a long history of being very unhappy with the relationship.
[1] http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBREA2Q2BJ20140327 [2] https://mobile.nytimes.com/2003/06/06/business/merchants-may... [3] http://www.computerworld.com/article/2839144/heres-why-rite-... [4] http://time.com/money/3541247/apple-pay-walmart-current-swip...
Stacking that stuff and CC rewards can save you several percent of your retail spending a year. Paying cash is like paying sales tax twice.
[EDIT] to be clear, you effectively pay more to not be tracked in general, not just for avoiding a CC. Loyalty cards get you regardless of payment method. Also, lots of stores try really hard to get you to take "their" credit card (god, Target won't shut up about it) with unusually good rewards or discounts at their store. You can bet they get access to those data, including when you use it other places, even if Visa or MasterCard services it (and also gets the data)
Interestingly, the discounts are usually not on the "exclusive" items, but on basic necessities - like vegetables.
Also, the shop in question didn't even have debit/credit card readers until very recently. I suppose stores may be reluctant to pushing people into card payments simply because processing fees are too large if you're running on small margin.
This may be a case where the savings (i.e. money from selling data in return for a big pile of cash) are actually passed on to the customer - e.g. transaction costs are lower for Visa/Mastercard for merchants, which is why they sometimes don't accept Amex and Discover.
It would be interesting to see if Visa and Mastercard have some clause which prevents Google from buying data from AMEX and Discover (competitive advantage for them because then Amex and Discover's transaction costs aren't subsidized) in return for agreeing to part with their data. Said another way, what's preventing Google from also getting data from Amex or Discover? Its not as if Google is going to say no.
https://www.revolution-payments.com/requirements-for-level-3...
> Level 3 processing can benefit businesses who sell to other businesses or government by lowering your transaction cost by as much as 1.50%.
> Line Item Details:
Of course, if they are like one of the places I worked...they just turn it on for everyone and pass it along regardless.
Google: You're already way too deep in our lives and now this. When will you ever stop? When you own us?