Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint

Re:Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal p... by drusepth on Monday July 31, 2017 @02:28PM (#14894660)

I wish they'd lobby this harder overseas. I moved to Europe 10 months ago and one of my biggest qualms with seemingly almost every single vendor here is that they only take cash and in the rare cases they also take card, they only take some cards (sometimes Visa, sometimes Maestro, sometimes MasterCard, etc).

I would give up my purchasing history to everyone in the world if it meant I could use a single card to actually pay for 80% of things on a day-to-day basis. Cash sucks.

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Re:Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal p... by chimen on Monday July 31, 2017 @03:08PM (#14894990)

Europe? You need to be more specific than that. I find it hard to believe what you say and I live in eastern europe (Romania). I don't have any problem paying with cards here. It's an actual european law that asks the merchants to accept credit cards.

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Re:Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal p... by drusepth on Tuesday August 01, 2017 @10:17AM (#14900834)

Sorry for being vague; just left it "europe" since I've moved around a bit since getting here.

I'm currently in Croatia, where it seems only restaurants and some grocery stores frequently take cards; I paid for an invoice at a local bank (Raiffeisenbank) yesterday that only took cash, which I thought was hilariously ironic.

For what it's worth, my stay in Iceland (3 months) was absolutely fantastic when it came to taking card payments.

On the other hand, the Netherlands (Amsterdam, 3 months) often only took Maestro-only (or sometimes Visa-only) in the cases where vendors even took cards.

Likewise in England (Sheffield, 3 months) many vendors only took cash, and were mightily confused by American cards (especially one requiring pin + signature).

I also had a brief stay in Italy (Naples, 1 week) where I found one restaurant that took any kind of card; everywhere else was cash-only.

This has been my experience. I didn't realize how commonplace card transactions actually were in America until I realized how rare they were in the places I've lived since.

I hate paying with cash because it's several extra mental steps to withdraw $X / maintain $X on hand / track expenditures / count up payments + check change / etc. It's so much easier and faster to use a card, so I hope Visa (or whomever, I don't have a preference as long as it's a card) lobbies for more widespread acceptance worldwide.

If that requires killing off cash, I wouldn't have a problem with that!

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Re:Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal p... by stordoff on Monday August 07, 2017 @01:21AM (#14945483)

> Likewise in England (Sheffield, 3 months) many vendors only took cash, and were mightily confused by American cards (especially one requiring pin + signature).

Do you remember where? I live in Sheffield, and I'm having a hard time thinking of anywhere I would have an issue paying by card.

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Re:Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal p... by fosco on Monday July 31, 2017 @04:18PM (#14895543)

Had an incredible opportunity to do a road trip through Romania (including way off beaten path) with some elders that escaped during communism. Both my visa and sometimes American express worked in many areas albeit I prefer to use cash when I can and find myself trying to use cash more often every day.

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Re:Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal p... by kuschku on Monday July 31, 2017 @07:39PM (#14896787)

Depending on where you are, you might just need to use another type of card.

Many parts of Europe have payment systems that are independent of VISA and MasterCard, but provide similar (but safer and more convenient) functionality, including the German-speaking countries.

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