<story><title>Dell Computers Has Been Hacked</title><url>http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2016/01/04/dell-computers-has-been-hacked/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dcposch</author><text>I assumed that when I buy something on a card, it&amp;#x27;s more or less private. The transaction should be known only to: me, the merchant, our respective banks, Visa, and I guess the IRS if they come and ask for it.&lt;p&gt;If I understand correctly, youre saying my entire purchase history is shared with random third party marketing companies. Full transaction data, PII included, no anonymization.&lt;p&gt;How is that even remotely OK?</text></item><item><author>nthitz</author><text>Axciom, Epsilon and similar companies track your credit card purchases and correlate them with a profile of who they think you are. If you work for a large corporation that is probably easier to identify than a small one.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.acxiom.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.acxiom.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.epsilon.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.epsilon.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>cm2187</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t know if it&amp;#x27;s related but I found something deeply worrying a couple of months ago. I purchased a laptop on Dell&amp;#x27;s website at my home address using a personal email and my personal paypal account. No reference anywhere to my job or employer. A couple of weeks later I receive a call from India on the mobile number provided to Dell, from a guy pretending to be from Dell (and he might have been) who wanted to discuss how he could do business with my employer which he mentioned by name (a large corporation).&lt;p&gt;At that time I thought that Dell&amp;#x27;s commercials were unacceptably pushy, googling their private clients to find a way in their employer. It didn&amp;#x27;t occur to me that this might have been a scam using Dell&amp;#x27;s database.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>davismwfl</author><text>Ok, I&amp;#x27;ll add to that a couple more details.  Many ecommerce companies sell your purchase history to third parties as well, just like the credit card companies.  This allows others to market to you more directly.&lt;p&gt;There is at least one company that has built technology that will monitor most all these purchases, monitor the IP&amp;#x27;s from them and the browser profile to identify a specific machine that you use.  Then when you go to work, or are on your mobile they also will tag that traffic as you too.  They have gotten so good they can serve ads that are relevant to your wife if she happens to be on your computer surfing the web for shoes say, but serve you different ads if you are on the same computer.  They use data feeds from many sources, but ecommerce transactions, credit card transactions and companies like acxiom that let them match those with real people, incomes and household details make it very powerful.&lt;p&gt;In marketing we use Axiom and others a lot, their data used to be more vague and educated guesses about people.  Now though, they have gotten it down pretty well, including how many animals, kids and your income&amp;#x2F;debt etc.  They collect data from tax collectors offices, county records, city records, plus companies that will sell transaction data and other pieces so they can get a full picture.  They of course work with Equifax, TransUnion etc too so they can build a whole economic profile on a person.&lt;p&gt;These companies are also what allow marketers to send you an email about their product&amp;#x2F;company after all you have done is visited their website.  You don&amp;#x27;t have to enter anything or click on anything, but they will know who you are, who you work for and whether you fit their market profile in general.  Poorly done it is extremely creepy, correctly done it can be an amazing conversion booster.</text></comment>
<story><title>Dell Computers Has Been Hacked</title><url>http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2016/01/04/dell-computers-has-been-hacked/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>dcposch</author><text>I assumed that when I buy something on a card, it&amp;#x27;s more or less private. The transaction should be known only to: me, the merchant, our respective banks, Visa, and I guess the IRS if they come and ask for it.&lt;p&gt;If I understand correctly, youre saying my entire purchase history is shared with random third party marketing companies. Full transaction data, PII included, no anonymization.&lt;p&gt;How is that even remotely OK?</text></item><item><author>nthitz</author><text>Axciom, Epsilon and similar companies track your credit card purchases and correlate them with a profile of who they think you are. If you work for a large corporation that is probably easier to identify than a small one.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.acxiom.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.acxiom.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.epsilon.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.epsilon.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>cm2187</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t know if it&amp;#x27;s related but I found something deeply worrying a couple of months ago. I purchased a laptop on Dell&amp;#x27;s website at my home address using a personal email and my personal paypal account. No reference anywhere to my job or employer. A couple of weeks later I receive a call from India on the mobile number provided to Dell, from a guy pretending to be from Dell (and he might have been) who wanted to discuss how he could do business with my employer which he mentioned by name (a large corporation).&lt;p&gt;At that time I thought that Dell&amp;#x27;s commercials were unacceptably pushy, googling their private clients to find a way in their employer. It didn&amp;#x27;t occur to me that this might have been a scam using Dell&amp;#x27;s database.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sbarre</author><text>That is correct. Banks and credit card companies merchandise this information to their partners, which leads to this kind of thing.  Check your cards&amp;#x27; terms of services if you want to be somewhat horrified.</text></comment>