For the record, while I think you make valid points, Banks absolutely do not do this - to advertisers at a minimum. The gov't can come in and investigate your account through certain procedures, so I can't speak to that, but when banks give your information to advertisers, it's not your transactional information. I know I'm asking you to trust me on this, but I know what I'm talking about. On a side note if you search the word "regulation" on hubski, you won't find my post but you'll find some very interesting discussion. I'm going to have to go back to it.Also, I have very little trust in the current social constructs and do not like the idea of having every single purchase I make recorded and distributed to advertisers and other not-so-nice government agencies for furthering questionable agendas of individuals within said organizations.
Hey that was a great thread and I didn't actually ever realize you passed (has it really been 250 days) but it's esp. great because if you scroll down to the bottom of the page you witness thenewgreen using the word 'droll' to mean 'dry', which is a misapplication, but one that is only interesting if you happen to be reading the Droll Stories of Honore de Balzac right now, as I am. They certainly are not the Dry Stories of -- anyway. You get the point. What was the point? EDIT: the point was that your transactional history falls under the jurisdiction of a warrant for your arrest, I think.
I think part of what should be considered is that these theoretical corporations who would be buying your transaction history really don't care that much about individuals on an individual level. Big companies such as Target already track everything you buy, even if you don't have some kind of card with them or a rewards program - they track your debit card number as it is used, and record the history of all items. Then they go do crazy things and tell you you're pregnant. Additional transaction information, such as what you buy at other stores, probably wouldn't be very helpful or informative to them, unless they were considering expanding into other types of businesses or providing other services. In addition, selling transaction history could potentially violate laws like HIPPA (as it would be possible to see whether you were going to doctor's appointments, especially specialist doctors or psychiatrists) and it would take manpower to scrub the transaction history of those purchases, and I don't think a bank would be willing to invest that much time into a situation like that. It's a matter of practicability in application - I don't think many corporations would want that information, and I don't think banks would find it profitable to provide it. I also highly doubt it would be legal, but as you believe, there's a wide gap between what banks should do and what they don't do[1] so I encourage you to think about it from terms of practicality and profit. In short I highly doubt it would be a profitable venture for a bank to sell transaction history. In addition, if regulators came across such a process, they would clamp the fuck down on it ASAP. [1] I have mixed opinions on this but that's not he point of this discussion