1. Buy medication I never have bought or even searched for before at local pharmacy w/ credit card
2. Go to car, decide to test #Librem5 cellular by visiting my account on mobile.twitter.com
3. Immediately see ad for type of medication I bought!
No location tracking possible on this Librem 5 (used browser, not native twitter app), so either a crazy coincidence, or near-real-time reporting between CVS and #adtech w/ linking between my name, card, and twitter account.
@daniel The phone doesn't know its location yet (GPS isn't enabled, I don't believe Epiphany browser even supports such a thing if it were enabled). It was a *competitor* to the specific medication I bought but in the same category of drug.
@kyle Damn, it would be nice to know who to blame for the leak.
@kyle mastercard sells realtime transaction data: https://www.mastercardservices.com/en/data-analytics
There was some way to opt out per card, but you need to look that up.
@kyle This report was an attempt to investigate the system as a whole, although often the info is still fragmented: https://crackedlabs.org/en/networksofcontrol
@setthemfree @kyle is there any card that doesn’t sell your data? Do debit cards sell your data?
@ehowell @setthemfree I don't know. While there are many issuers for credit cards, there are only a few networks (Visa/MC/AMEX/Discover/etc) so even if your issuer doesn't sell your data (the one I built infrastructure for didn't), if the network does (as this thread shows MC does) there's not much you can do.
With a strictly debit card (no CC features) I suppose the issuing bank and/or company managing the card infrastructure could offer #privacy for you.
There's also always cash :)
@kyle that sounds too perfect to be a coincidence
@kyle “There's also always cash” that might be about to change, unfortunately 😞 with cash transactions dropping maybe 50% over the last ten years in parts of Europe and stores starting to accept card payment only. Maybe the U.S. is different?
@kyle There are many ways to track humans. Cameras can identify you by the way you are walking or the way your heartbeat can been measured or your face... Maybe you wear digital clock or cloth. However you moved by car - relatively fast - stopped around pharmacy for 5 min. Its not hard to guess where you are going to. Celltowers triangulate your position pretty exact and your Carrier has detailed info about every packet your phone transmits. - Still the exact medicine: Has your car Siri / Google
@kyle That is freaky. Is it possible that the web page grabbed your location data from the phone somehow without asking? That still doesn't explain the specific med, unless it is very common/sex related. That might make the coincidence more likely.