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posted by martyb on Wednesday May 24 2017, @01:44PM   Printer-friendly
from the all-your-data-are-belong-to-us. dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Wednesday May 24 2017, @08:49PM (1 child)

    by Nuke (3162) on Wednesday May 24 2017, @08:49PM (#515098)

    if you have top-of-mind or unaided awareness of a particular brand at the point of purchase, the advertising has succeeded, even if you don't actually purchase that particular brand

    "Succeeded" only in the surreal world of salesmanship. They are like jobsworths who think that is where their job stops. My wife is a bookkeeper to a small plastics company; the two salesman/reps (one is the owner) will spend half an hour on the phone with someone enquiring about buying one plastic bottle "Because it is good for customer relations" they say. Meanwhile the company is going down the pan because that customer ended up buying just that £1 bottle, or none at all. These salesmen seem to measure their success by how long they can keep talking to a customer; OTOH my wife (any anyone else sane) measures it by how much money the company makes.

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  • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday May 24 2017, @09:25PM

    "Succeeded" only in the extremely profitable world of advertising

    There. FTFY.

    Advertising is not sales.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr