Report: Google Bought Consumer Spending Data From Mastercard

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According to a report over at Bloomberg, Google and Mastercard came to a deal whereby U.S. consumers' spending was tracked in Google's attempt to connect offline spending with online adversing.

Clearly, there are significant privacy concerns, even if it's obfuscated.

Google is testing the data service with a “small group” of advertisers in the U.S., according to a spokeswoman. With it, marketers see aggregate sales figures and estimates of how many they can attribute to Google ads -- but they don’t see a shoppers’ personal information, how much they spend or what exactly they buy. The tests are only available for retailers, not the companies that make the items sold inside stores, the spokeswoman said. The service only applies to its search and shopping ads, she said.

[bloomberg.com...]

Here's the earlier coverage
[webmasterworld.com...]

[NickMNS]

from the article:

“They’re sharing data that has been so transformed that, if put in the public, no party could do anything with it,” Polonetsky said. “It doesn’t create a privacy risk.”

It doesn't create privacy risk? Isn't Google's use of the data the risk? Are we to believe that Google is some benevolent entity that will only use this information for good? No Google is going to use this information to manipulate consumers such that it profit to the fullest extent.

I've got nothing to hide...

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Google's initial objective is to connect the purchase to the ads, to give the ads greater credibility. Really, is this necessary?
Eventually, joe public will want to see an end to the secretive tracking.