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The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/05/23/google-now-knows-when-you-are-at-a-cash-register-and-how-much-you-are-spending/ reports that Google has talked retailers into sharing data from credit card transactions, which it will link to location and other data, to further enhance consumer profiling*.
The article says "Google for years has been mining location data from Google Maps in an effort to prove that knowledge of people's physical locations could "close the loop" between physical and digital worlds. Users can block this by adjusting the settings on smartphones, but few do so, say privacy experts.
This location tracking ability has allowed Google to send reports to retailers telling them, for example, whether people who saw an ad for a lawn mower later visited or passed by a Home Depot. The location-tracking program has grown since it was first launched with only a handful of retailers. Home Depot, Express, Nissan, and Sephora have participated."
* and erode privacy.
The article also makes it clear than consumers don't get to opt-out, if they even find out their data has been shared.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday May 24 2017, @03:49PM (1 child)
Just make sure you have exact change. ATMs that spit out 50 Euro bills and dour German grocery cashiers that expect you to have precisely 16.85 to pay for your items don't really mix well. If you don't have the pennies to satisfy your debt exactly, show deepest regret and apologize profusely for your abject stupidity in being unable to hoard change as if you were a cash register and manage it like a proper German. (Some of the cashiers will merely look at you with great disdain, as if you had killed a puppy in front of them; others will actually lecture you.)
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Wednesday May 24 2017, @04:05PM
Lol, good to know. I always have the exact amount ready. I pre-calculate the cost, and while in line I prep cash and change, so that when it comes to my turn I just hand over the money and transaction completes successfully. If I don't have exact amount I usually let them keep the difference. Quite a few times I found them trying to overcharge me as well.
And I got bags of change at home, which made it a pain when they decided to get rid of the £1 coin, I had to manually dig out every £1 coin in the bags and put them in a pile to use up. £63 in one pound coins I found. For a while I paid with everything in £1 coins only, the look on some cashiers faces was priceless XD
Once the coin changes go through, I may well buy one of those coin sorting machines, so they can all be in nice piles. That would make me happy.