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Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
Way back in December 2018, we reported that Google was building a creepy profile of everything people purchase by scanning their emails in Gmail. In that report, we covered ways to delete this purchase history which included deleting the order data directly from your Gmail inbox. Now a new report is claiming that deleting emails doesn't work and there's actually no way to delete this Google purchase history.
The report from CNBC's Todd Haselton says that he deleted 10 years worth of emails from his Gmail inbox in order to clear his Google purchase history. However, three weeks after deleting all the email, his purchase history is still there. He adds that he can't delete anything from this list of purchases and he can't stop Google adding his recent purchases to this list.
Google says that unlinking your subscriptions and changing the activity settings for other Google services can reduce the purchase history data that's collected. However, it doesn't provide any specific examples of which subscription settings or activity settings to change in order to stop this purchase data being collected.
Additionally, since Google's recommendation of deleting purchase receipts from your Gmail inbox doesn't appear to work, these other recommendations may also do little to prevent purchase data from being collected.
Source: https://reclaimthenet.org/google-gmail-purchase-history-cannot-be-deleted/
(Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Tuesday July 09 2019, @03:42PM (5 children)
I've worked in CRM software.
If an ATM has a certain major hardware company's logo on it, I can guarantee that it does the following: records the day of extraction and the customer account tagged to the serial number of money pulled out.
Major corporations that buy into that hardware company's CRM software, and customer information from the bank, they're informed of what person pulled out the 20s from the ATM when the money is pulled from the store's cash registers and put into the safe. Because the money counters are also serial number scanners.
This is slightly more anonymized, it takes several passes for them to verify that A. you consistently shop at their store, B. you don't give the 20s to some intermediate who doesn't spy on you first, and C. that the net cash transactions at the registers you checkout at show some pattern.
(If you use the self check-out machines they scan the money at purchase time.)
But your plan of not being spied on is one the absolute fuckers have already been trying to circumvent for over a decade now. I believe from casual observation that it's also major banks' policies to scan serial numbers of cash when you get it from a teller as well, but that technology wasn't in my company training.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @04:40PM (3 children)
They're tracking the serial numbers on the damn currency?
*sigh* No matter how paranoid I am, I'm never paranoid enough.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday July 09 2019, @06:44PM
They have been doing this in Holland a long time ago -- but not to track spending habits. Currency has its serial number recorded as a bar code. All paper money goes through the central bank regularly, and the bank checks if any serial numbers show up more often than plausible. If it does, they investigate, because those bills are likely counterfeit.
(Score: 3, Informative) by darkfeline on Tuesday July 09 2019, @09:18PM (1 child)
Uh, what did you think the serial numbers were for? In this case, I don't think it's a matter of being paranoid, it's a matter of not thinking.
I posted about the tracking of serial numbers on cash at least two times previously, but the usual posters seem to want to willfully ignore the fact that it's impossible to escape tracking in the modern world. Most/all of the workarounds Soylentils use are just privacy theater.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Wednesday July 10 2019, @03:03AM
I hate to admit it, but it only just occurred to me that *THIS* is really why stores are pushing to self-checkouts these days.
Had to stop by Home Depot for the first time in more than a year or so, and they had made EVERYTHING self checkout, even though you could still use cash. The entire place feels like one large vending machine now, has cameras that beep at you on every isle, a very unpleasant place, and I don't plan on ever going back there again unless I absolutely have to.
So, it used to be the most they knew was that at some point a purchase was that day in the store with cash that might have been me. Now it is tied to the exact purchase. If you add in facial recognition, then you have everything.
Thank you, fucking Nazi spying corporate shitheads.
(Score: 4, Informative) by NotSanguine on Tuesday July 09 2019, @08:03PM
I always use pennies.
No serial numbers on pennies.
And if anyone wants to steal them, $100 worth weighs 25kg (~55lbs).
The best part is when you drive up in your 15 foot panel truck to buy a new car or a nice oak bedroom set.
I just bring down the pallet with the pennies in a huge burlap sack and tell the sales guy, "Just let me know if it's not enough and then go have a nice meal at a nearby restaurant, but not too expensive a meal, and not too far away, as I'll be carrying ~50lbs of pennies with me to pay.
Life is good!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr