Today the FTC announced it was requesting Mastercard and 7 other companies to hand over information about how they collect and use data about consumers for “surveillance pricing”–or showing individuals different prices based on data a company has collected about them.
Late last year PIRG published an investigation into Mastercard’s data practices. We found the company monetizes cardholder transaction data at massive scales, both through third party data marketplaces online and inside its own Data & Services division, where it advertises access to its databases of more than 125 billion purchase transactions through its more than 25 data services products. Some products give companies the chance to pay for cybersecurity and fraud detection tools. Others are focused on the monetization of consumer information for AI-driven consumer modeling and highly-targeted advertising.
Credit card data is extremely valuable for companies aiming to predict how people will spend money in the future. Knowing how much people spend, where and on what day says a lot about consumers’ financial situations.