Like my bank balance? If you have proof of that, I'd love to see it.

well, apparently in 2018 Google signed a secret deal with Mastercard sharing credit card payment information to do offline tracking of sales that originated from their ads. source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-an...

and they did this, even if you told them not to track you.

They probably don't need to, and can profile your economic status through indirect means.

Not that I know they're doing that, just that they definitely can get the gist of what and how you're doing with their tracking algorithms.

If you don't think there's a big difference between "indirect means" and literally examining bank records then please try this new browser I just invented.

Hmm. If you have gmail, they are parsing your overdraft notices so they can max out ad revenue from overpriced loan vendors.

this hasn’t been a thing since 5 years ago:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/23/15862492/google-gmail-adv...

Google scrapes/buys some financial data. Check out “Payments & subscriptions” under “Google Account Activity”.

They’re an ad-tech company. Calculating conversion rates is part of their business.

Do you get statements by email?

Are there banks that send out statements by email…?

If so… wow.

Are there banks that don't? I haven’t come across a bank (in South Asia at least) that didn't have the option (and encourage you to use it) to receive statements as password protected pdfs.

Here in Australia, I get an email when I have a new statement ready. I have to log in to their website to download the PDF. Its pretty annoying, but I suppose it keeps me safe from things like this.

Similar to the system that my bank in Sweden uses.

American here. This is what my bank does as well. No account statements sent directly via email.

A password protected pdf has an important characteristic your e-mail doesn't.

My bank statements still come in the mail, I live in the eastern US. ;-)

... most of them?

If there's not a law to prevent it, I'd assume banks sell your balance info anyway.

Google has a pretty good idea of your household income, among a huge load of other things. Go check the "Ad personalisation" page in your google account settings.

They can literally deduce it from all your invoice and payment confirmation emails for every online thing you've ever got + bank statements.