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Comment by cs702 | Hacker News Reader

Here are some examples of things I prefer to buy with cash: purchases at airports (junk food, junk media, junk items); purchases while traveling by car (mostly junk food); purchases on riskier/dicier neighborhoods and areas; certain occasional purchases at the grocery store or pharmacy.

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.

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There seems to be an underlying assumption here and in the rest of this thread that insurance companies (or others) are somehow getting access to your transaction history.

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.

Bewildering or not, and whether you want to believe it or not, I wouldn't put it past your bank: all the economic incentives are firmly stacked against you.

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...

Perhaps this is more of a problem in the US than in NZ.

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)

It is an argument for straightforward and effective regulation. Otherwise, individuals end up jumping through endless hoops, when they are even offered an "opt out" or similar option.

"By what mechanism are you suggesting this occurs? I can't believe that your bank would simply sell it to whoever asks"

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've seen one or two cc processor APIs that enabled the passing of receipt/item info via the point of sale, but my company (I work on a retail POS) has never implemented them.

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.

They may not have it now, but how bewildering is it to think that they may have access some day? (to include historical records)

It wouldn't have to be your bank, either; it could be the retailer that sells your information.

So McDonalds is going to sell their customer data to insurance companies so that insurance companies can raise premiums on McDonalds customers?

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.

No, McDonald's will give their customers' data to marketing or ad companies like Google so that these companies can get McDonalds' customers to go to McDonald's more.

I still don't understand how your actions are influenced by developments in data mining. Am I missing something?

It seems like you're just protecting yourself from your card information getting recorded and replayed (old hack in the book).

Big data mining has made it radically easier / more practical, to mine everybody's purchase records for cross matches on lifestyle choices. In this case, impacting things like health insurance.

By shifting to cash, they can't track any of that.

What about the tinfoil for your hat?

I would buy it with cash too ;-)

my insurance company doesn't let me buy those anymore.

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