Google Now Tracks Your Offline Credit Card Purchases, Linking Them To Your Online Profile

In this issue:

  • Google now tracks your offline credit card purchases, linking them to your online profile
  • Obama Administration secretly discloses illegal NSA searches
  • Theresa May Wants To Regulate The Internet
  • Eat at Chipotle’s lately? Better check your online banking…

Google now tracks your offline credit card purchases, linking them to your online profile

MIT Technology Review called an otherwise under-reported announcement out of Google “a stunning example of surveillance capitalism in action”.

What Google can now do is figure out if the online ads you are viewing through their search engine translates into offline sales in the bricks-and-mortar world (or conversely, analyze your offline buying habits to better tailor what ads they target at you). Google’s blog post on this explained how they do this via partnerships with third-parties which gives them visibility into 70% of offline credit card transactions. But don’t worry, Google assures us they do all this whilst protecting our privacy.

Read: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607938/google-now-tracks-your-credit-card-purchases-and-connects-them-to-its-online-profile-of-you/

and: Big Other: Surveillance Capitalism and the Prospects of an Information Civilization: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2594754

Obama Administration secretly discloses illegal NSA searches

Big surprise: The NSA illegally searched meta-data of US citizens while vacuuming overseas intercepts and failed to disclose the violations until the last days of the Obama presidency. The Obama administration officials then disclosed the transgressions in a closed-door hearing before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) on October 26, 2016.

Read: http://circa.com/politics/barack-obamas-team-secretly-disclosed-years-of-illegal-nsa-searches-spying-on-americans

Theresa May Wants Internet Crackdown in wake of Manchester

In what was described as a “sweeping Manifesto” issued by British PM on May 18, before the fateful bombing, a small line tucked in near the end stated “Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet. We disagree.” Days later, tragedy struck in Manchester, and despite that there are no indications that weakened internet security could have prevented the attack, May is calling for G7 nations to coordinate in a widespread internet crackdown, including forcing technology companies to weaken security to enable government snooping of communications.

Read: https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/theresa-may-wants-to-regulate-the-internet

and: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/g7-summit-2017-theresa-may-internet-crackdown-manchester-attack-world-leaders-online-cyber-a7756806.html

Eat at Chipotle’s lately? Better check your online banking

The Mexican-styled restaurant chain disclosed just before the weekend that hackers had penetrated their point-of-sale terminals for 3 weeks beginning in late March, stealing banking information, including verification codes that could link bank accounts. See list of affected restaurant locations here.

Read: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-27/chipotle-hacked-massive-breach-customer-payment-data-stolen-thousands-restaurants

and: https://www.chipotle.com/security#security

Previously on #AxisOfEasy

If you missed the previous issues, they can be read online here:

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