9 years ago
15
Apple may start showing you ads based on your credit card balance
A new Apple patent suggests the tech juggernaut may be interested in targeting customers with ads based on their incomes and credit card balances. New tool would only display ads for products users can afford, according to their banks.
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That's...interesting. What exactly is the legality of looking at someone's account balance?
Only your bank has that information, I'm not sure how Apple plans to get users balance. I think even an ATM from other bank can't check your account balance at the moment.
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Would they use information that ApplePay can access? I have not used ApplePay, but isn't it a payment app that can use linked accounts like your credit and bank accounts, so it would know these balances?
The only information Apple Pay has access to is your credit card number, which it can securely provide over NFC when requested.
Well. That's creepy as shit.
I'm concerned there's still some information Apple lacks to fully customize my ad experience. There's a whole world of data they could use to tailor-make advertisements. For instance, Apple still doesn't have access to my secret wants, dreams and darkest desires. Without read/write access to my brain, they must simply make wild guesses based on my browsing history. Hopefully in the future, I'll be able to beta test some sort of cerebral shunt or lightly invasive surgical implant to personalize my advertainment experience based on wants and desires I'm not even consciously aware of.
Hehe. :)
Although given the choice between targeted ads and non-targeted ads (i.e., spam), I'd much prefer the former. Of course, it would be best to get rid of ads altogether, but that's not going to happen now is it.
I like how Hulu does it. You can opt into broad categories, like Cars or Tech or Health. Or you can leave them all checked and get a generic stream. It's personalized, but based on data willingly given by the user, rather than collected by the company.
I just don't see how this is a good idea.... Or strictly speaking, legal, but finance and credit law is a murky murky swamp, especially here in the US....
Hella creepy, but so gosh darn useful I can't be upset at it.
I mean yes, you are inspecting every part of my life that not even my parents know about with an uncaring mechanical eye, I but I really like know about new stuff I can afford.
You should take it one step further and see what I purchases I make with my card like the self-checkout machines do to give me targeted coupons on stuff I bought.
Whenever there's news of patents, please remember that they are seldom an indicator of actual future plans. Companies aim to patent basically everything even closely related to their business. Patents are also used to hinder competitors: Google (the ad-selling company) might think this credit card balance check is a nice way to target ads, but if another company holds the patent, they need to pay license fees or forget about the idea completely.
Who would even do such a thing!? We already get ads out the wazoo! Who wants even more? Really,even if you opted in, your cc info is none of Apple's business.
What about people who are beyond their credit limit? Would that in effect block all of their ads?
Can't help but wonder what the personalized internet advertising landscape will look like once this tool is ubiquitous, and once the lines of privacy are blurred further than at present (specifically when this particular bit of credit information is up for sale to any and all internet marketers, if it isn't already) .