*The United States PIRG investigation revealed how Mastercard, a global payments technology company, has increasingly monetised ‘immense’ amounts of consumers’ transaction data in its possession to enable other companies to improve marketing that can predict buying behaviour prospect for new high-spending consumers

Isola Moses | 绿帽献妻

Experts have opined it is natural for a credit card company to know where a digital consumer shops, how much he/she spends, and on what days.

However, if such a global payments technology company turns around and sells that information to another company that wants to buy it, some might say that may be going a little too far.

The US PIRG investigation revealed Mastercard has increasingly monetised an 鈥渋mmense鈥� amount of transaction data that it has access to over the past several years 鈥� enabling companies to improve marketing that can predict your buying behaviour prospect for new high-spending customers.

R.J. Cross, Director of PIRG鈥檚 “Don鈥檛 Sell My Data” campaign, said: “It’s like if you hired a babysitter and while watching your kids, they took photos of everything in your house to sell online later.”

Cross stated this isn鈥檛 just your straightforward 鈥淢astercard鈥� that鈥檚 branded as their own, but also includes other partner-branded 鈥淢astercard” — like the ones that airlines offer, for example, agency report also said.

Run, but you can鈥檛 hide. Why?

In order to show some examples, PIRG pointed to Mastercard鈥檚 listing on Amazon Web Services Data Exchange, where an agency found trough after trough of data that companies can access address listings for:

• Online Food & Meal Delivery 鈥� Frequent Buyers
• Online Shoppers 鈥� High Spenders
• Likely to Be a Small Business 鈥� In Market
• Luxury Retailers 鈥� High Spenders
• Fast Fashion Apparel Buyers 鈥� High Spenders
• Big Ticket Shoppers (Online) 鈥� Frequent Buyers
• Affluent Shoppers
• Brick and Mortar Shoppers, and
• Luxury Travellers & Tourists

It was also learnt there were 鈥渂uilt-to-order audiences鈥� that a client can spec out to work with their own marketing strategies.

Report indicates those specifications can include an advertiser’s choice of:

• Transactions (e.g., amount, frequency, offline vs. online)
• Date and Time (e.g., date range, time of day, weekend vs. weekday)
• Geography (e.g., country, state/province, DMA, city, region)
• Industry / Merchants (e.g., Merchant Category Codes (MCCs), custom aggregate set of industry merchants)

鈥淢astercard creates categories of consumers based on this transaction history, like identifying 鈥榟igh spenders鈥� on fast fashion or 鈥榝requent buyers’ of big-ticket items online, and sells these groupings, called 鈥榓udiences,鈥� to other entities.

“These groups can be targeted at the micro-geographic level, and even be based on AI-driven scores Mastercard assigns to consumers predicting how likely they are to spend money in certain ways within the next three months.鈥�

Mastercard not alone in spinning data accumulation, says report

However, Mastercard is not alone in this as PIRG鈥檚 Cross were quick to point out that tech company is not the lone wolf in spinning data accumulation into gold.

Cross, Director of PIRG鈥檚 “Don鈥檛 Sell My Data” campaign, further explained: “Nor is it necessarily the worst actor.

“But in its position as a global payments technology company, Mastercard has access to enormous amounts of information derived from the financial lives of millions, and its monetisation strategies tell a broader story of the data economy that鈥檚 gone too far.鈥�

Amazon, Meta, Toyota, Uber, Ford, Telcos also indicted in consumers鈥� data sales

The PRIG report as well disclosed that lots of companies 鈥� almost every company that can collect and sell data is in the business.

Cross noted: “The big technology companies are the worst offenders, like Meta and Amazon.

“But also see Mozilla Foundation’s report earlier this month that most car companies sell data they collect about consumers 鈥� particularly Ford and Toyota. Another report from 2021 found Uber Eats and Grubhub are big sellers, too.

“And the telephone companies, too! T-Mobile in particular has gotten big in this world in the last couple of years.”

Should you then cancel your Mastercard credit/debit card?

As you now know what PIRG found, how far should you go in protecting yourself as a consumer in the digital ecosystem?

A Spokesperson for PIRG said: “It’s hard to escape credit card companies monetising your data without your knowledge. Canceling is likely unrealistic for many people.

鈥淩ight now the best option is to take advantage of the options the payment networks do offer.鈥�

PIRG offers a complete “tips guide” for the Mastercard issue, but here are the highlights:

Filling out this form on Mastercard鈥檚 Web site to opt-out of analytics, which will cut down on your data being used for extra purposes.

You may sign up for its data portal to request it delete your data, report noted.

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