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Comment by Terretta | Hacker News Reader

True, while Google sees roughly 85% of all American cardholder swipes and doesn't need to sell it since they're making the ad market...

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> while Google sees roughly 85% of all American cardholder swipe

I'm probably not reading this properly, can you say that a different way?

Google buys transaction data from credit card companies (Visa, Mastercard, etc). They almost certainly know what you spend money on

For every 20 Americans with a credit card, 17 have all their purchases sent to Google.

How on earth is this legal

Corporations are people, too.

Or phrased less inflammatory manner: "Corporations can enter into contracts and engage in legal action just like people can". Even the much maligned Citizens United v. FEC basically boils down to "groups of people (corporations or labor unions) don't lose first amendment protections just because they decided to group up".

Except not everyone in a corporation has the right to speech. I'm prohibited by my employer to say anything on the company's behalf, but the C-suite and board are able to speak on my behalf. So, the company's leadership has a right to free speech, I don't.

>Except not everyone in a corporation has the right to speech. I'm prohibited by my employer to say anything on the company's behalf,

Yeah, that's how organizations typically work? You might have "freedom of movement", but that doesn't mean you can work in your CEO's office. Organizations also limit who has access to its bank accounts, but that doesn't mean it's suddenly illegitimate for companies to engage in transactions.

You still have that right; you simply entered into a voluntary agreement with your employer not to exercise it in exchange for money. Happens all the time.

Let's bring back indentured servitude, you have a right to not be a slave but you should still be able to enter into a voluntary agreement not to exercise that right.

That’s a facetious reply and you know it. Agreeing not to say certain things is practically a universal requirement of employment, for example, to preserve trade secrets. And indentured servitude is illegal.

Cut it out.

> you simply entered into a voluntary agreement with

Let's stop you right there.

Having a job is rarely truly voluntary. It's almost always obligatory instead.

That's just life. Modern society obligates us to do things like feed, clothe, and house ourselves; they aren't just going to result because you exist. Getting a job is an sacrifice we make to fulfill those other basic obligations.

To discuss further would require us to go into the rabbit hole to debate whether capitalism is the right structure for society, but so far, everything else that's been tried has been worse.

This comment is quoting Mitt Romney

Things that aren't explicitly made illegal are legal. Who would invest the resources necessary to get a law banning this passed?

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