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Comment by thinkMOAR | Hacker News Reader

whats the fine print for your 1-3% cash back? wondered about that. Will you be sharing (allowing the card issuer) to sell meta data of your transactions?

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With most credit cards, your entire purchase history (sometimes including item-level data) is for sale to data brokers and advertising companies. It's a high price for that 1-3% cash back.

In addition to selling purchase history, CC companies may also be (at least partially) funding the rewards with transaction fees.

Some cards (e.g. Amazon Store Card) get you relatively high rewards at a specific vendor (Amazon). I predict there are special deals in place with the banks/transaction processors involved that make these rewards more possible.

Ah okay, that cashback system doesn't exist here and creditcard usually not used at all. Wondered if it was a loyalty bonus or data sharing.

Not sure why people down vote it? then again who cares.

You have a good point. I just got the costco citi credit card, and there was a small pamphlet included with the privacy information and what data is shared. Basically something like 8 line items for different kinds of data, 5/8 were required, the other 3 I had the option to opt-out, but they were automatically opt-in.

At the end of the day, the benefits far outweigh the meta-data that is shared. Ok, sure you can see what I ordered at costco and how much I spend on gas.

Yes, it's a data grab by companies, but what are you gonna do... not take 4% back on gas and 3% on restaurants?

>not take 4% back on gas and 3% on restaurants yes? This is the same argument for using stuff like gmail. What, are you really gonna pay 20 bucks a year for email? I'm sure everyone's price to sell away their privacy is different but I'm a little off-put by how cheaply people are selling themselves these days. I hope it never becomes a problem (e.g. Stasi) but if it does I won't be crying for those people whose lives will be ruined.

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