I've been using cash for certain purchases for several years now, because consumer-protection laws, regulations, and policies are far, far, far behind the tectonic shifts that have already occurred in the world of data mining.
Also, on occasion, I will refrain from buying or getting certain things if I can't buy or get them anonymously.
Until the legal, regulatory, and cultural environment meaningfully change, my presumption is that every single non-anonymous purchase I make can and probably will be used against my economic interests, sooner or later.
I find this concept bewildering.
By what mechanism are you suggesting this occurs? I can't believe that your bank would simply sell it to whoever asks.
As things stand right now, the regulatory environment permits banks to send you a difficult-to-understand, filled-with-legalese notice letting you know they will be sharing a lot of your information with third parties and certain "affiliates" (such as, say, joint ventures with other companies)... unless you call some call center to opt-out.
How easy is it to opt-out? Here's what one consumer found out when he tried to opt-out from one well-known bank's default "privacy" policy: http://blog.joemanna.com/chase-sucks-with-new-privacy-policy...
Then one reads about companies like Acxiom in this recent article in the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/technology/acxiom-the-quie...
My bank has "ASB will not sell your information to third parties." in it's privacy policy near the top. They do talk about sharing information with credit agencies.
At least in my country there are laws about this kind of thing. (Privacy Act 1993, NZ)
In Europe there are "data protection" laws and what this means is that there is always a checkbox to check before companies could sell your data.
BUT, they try as much as they can to make you check it. If you do you will receive a "gift"(useless piece of crap) or 10 euro discount.
I never do but my mother does and she can't stop receiving junk in the mail box from different parties. My mother always says "how do they know my adress or my age?
Database selling or exchange between companies is routine.
I'm pretty sure they don't even give the merchant a break on their processing rate if they provide that info, and that it's just for reference by the merchant. I've never read the fine print though, so who knows.
While I agree that the data sharing has gotten way out of hand in the pursuit of profits, only the stupidest of companies would sell their customers out in this way.
It seems like you're just protecting yourself from your card information getting recorded and replayed (old hack in the book).
By shifting to cash, they can't track any of that.