...huh? "Don't use store membership cards that track your specific purchases" is one thing, but in what world does your credit card processor get info about the individual goods on your receipt?
Didn't Google start buying this kind of data to match up online purchase intent with real-world purchases?
A person with habitual transactions at a casino or liquor store could be perceived as high risk and the lender could jack up the interest rate for that person. I have no clue if lenders _actually_ do this, but they could since they do ask for your outgoing transactions.
Credit card company rolls up your behavior into a number, and passes that to a credit agency like Experian, and they pop a number out to anyone who asks.
No one is asking for outgoing transactions unless you're trying to buy a business or are getting a non-standard loan for something
The fear of having oneself audited is the main reason more people don't run for office.
Yes, some narcissistic maniacs have managed to slip through by portraying themselves as victims of witch hunts, but the average married person will not run for office if it means their spouse will find out they went to a strip club.
Everyone is susceptible to blackmail. The digital trail of expenditures is the key to letting the people with access to that data remain in power.
Personally I'd be far more interested to learn that someone running for office refuses to use a credit card to buy groceries because they fear having that information collected and used against them... than that they once spent $500 in a single month on Twinkies.
If someone wants to use your spending history against you they don't actually need your credit card bills these days, they can just make something up. Look at the insanity that people managed to create out of John Podesta's office pizza orders.
"The GoBeRmEnT Is GoNa TrAcK YoU"
Listen, you got a cell phone, and chances are that's going to give away far, far more than data that your credit card company holds on to.
They're just going to have a line -- "Food Lion, [Date] $88.23" -- not detailed list of your purchases.
Meanwhile if you use a membership card at any sort of grocery store, they absolutely will associate it with you; in many cases you have to register that card with your name and phone in order to use the points. Cash or credit, that's tracking you.
Until modern social media that -- grocery store membership cards -- were one of the best predictors of age, income, gender, etc. available.
Then, having found me, I asked what number was in there, and he proceeded to read, with exactly zero recognition, <area code> 867-5309, and I just laughed on the outside, and cried a little on the inside.
No matter how evil and corrupt a given corporation is, it could never be as bad as a government.
Boston Dynamics is no more (and honestly in many ways far less) enmeshed in the security state than any number of military suppliers. Seems like a poor argument that things are specifically bad now or getting worse on this front.
If you’d pointed at Palantir perhaps you’d have had a point.
FWIW, too, the "tinfoil hat" thing doesn't work on me. I will smugly tighten mine as I look down upon the naive proletariat being manhandled as "Do You Love Me" [1] is played over the crowd control loudspeakers.
Few Americans are aware even now of the role of IBM in mechanizing and tabulating the murder of Jews for the Nazis, and basically no Americans were aware of it then[0]. "They" who desire "symbiosis" between corporate power and government power - a better word would be fusion - are the same corporations who promoted fascism in the US and abroad throughout the 20th Century, whose continued efforts we can see daily through virtually all channels in our society.
Name one sphere of society in which corporate power has not merged with or overrun democratic governmental oversight. Name one environmental, social or economic battle that grassroots democratic movements or western governments have won against the corrosive force of corporate profiteering in the last 30 years.
My concerns aren't exclusive to governments or corporations. The degree of co-mingingling of personnel and regulatory capture at this point makes the difference moot. Whoever has the data on every purchase you made since 2012 can silence you, threaten you, blackmail you, or force you out of a public or private position, if there's any difference between those things now. It doesn't matter if you're innocent or the law is on your side; all that matters is perception. Someone who wants you in can hide anything you did; someone who wants you out can find the smallest detail that you accidentally allowed to be recorded, and amplify it. It really makes no difference whether it's a government agency, or a corporation. Splitting hairs on that or saying I'm necessarily paranoid because my concern runs more toward government abuse is an argument about nothing more than the superficial, speculative scenario. The data is the data, and anyone who has it has power. Power is power, and it's only realized when you can wield it over people. Handing anyone your full purchasing history is giving them the power to subjugate you.
Risk minimization sounds prudent if you’re a target.
“Read about J. Edgar Hoover” is a handwave, rather than an argument, and its made worse when it supposed to support a position on the current state of affairs.
Life isn't a song, nobody in politics these days actually faces the consequences just because they were a rapist/adulterer/wearing blackface/drag/doing felony fraud/etc.
I wouldn’t conflate political shenanigans and things that make the news with systemic forces. Made up things don’t always, or even often, pass muster in court. But true information being lawfully used against you will result in no legal recourse.
after that you need some magic to deanonymize the anonymized data, but in the 90s plenty of people claimed to do that already. the famous case was infact with health insurance and burgers... but i can't recall any names.
edit: in the usa
Same reason why, if you insist on installing an app from your auto insurance company, you should not let it access location data.
And, if I had to guess, the booking of hotel rooms probably has more to do with liability rather than tracking. There are plenty of ways of getting a roof over your head without using a credit card; though IMO they are likely a downgrade.
While your statements resonate with me, it's a bit hyperbolic to say that electronic payments/banking are the only way of exerting the control you're worried about. I think there are a lot of good points in this line of complaint about centralized private financial systems, but the ones you're raising are a bit fringe.
Why is that a good thing? You used to be able to walk into the airport, pay cash at the ticket counter for a ticket, and get on the plane. Compared to the fantastic level of nonsense we put up with today?
That said, your comment doesn't deserve downvotes, because this very much depends on where you live. It's true that some of them are as crooked as you say. I can usually tell within a minute of walking into one. And if that's been your experience then I can't blame you for holding that perception. But I don't think it's true over all in America.
Granted, I don't see a lot of campaign ads, but has this ever happened? Has anyone ever run an ad like "My opponent's credit card bill shows they bought nothing but Funyuns and Jack Daniels for the entire month of August. How can you vote for this person?"
One piece of advice I got a long time ago, from a family member in politics: Don't put your groceries on a credit card. Especially if you buy junk food or alcohol. Obviously the same goes for bars, tobacco, strip clubs, gun purchases[0], and lots of other perfectly legal things that you might not want being counted up if you ever run for office.
At the systemic level, the main benefits of going cashless are:
- Being able to track everyone's purchases (for taxation, law enforcement, and in some countries the blackmail of political opposition or assigning "social credit" ratings)
- Have realtime, near-total visibility into the movement of money, for economic management and personal profit
- Being able to cut off individuals or members of a political movement from the ability to purchase basic necessities, if they fall afoul of the party in power[1]
[0] https://www.wlox.com/2022/09/20/gop-ags-call-credit-card-com...
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/trudeau-canada-freeze-bank-a...
[edit]: I should have also mentioned freedom of movement and association. You cannot buy a plane ticket or a hotel room anymore for cash - even if your bank's ATM allowed you to access enough of your cash in a single day to do so. Cards enable the granular tracking of everyone's movement, whether or not that person chooses to carry a cellphone.