Personally, I prefer not to be potentially swamped by advertisements and promotions by EVERY merchant I shop at. I agree with you, Some I don't mind, especially its somewhere I frequent regularly but if I'm buying once from someone, I prefer them not to have my info, or at least give me the option to provide it.
(snip) We should be able to have anonymity AND convenience.
It's almost like we need not only proxy (token) account numbers, but proxy addresses as well. The merchant could access our proxy address, and if we've opt'd in for ads from their category, then they'd ask the proxy server to send us ads/coupons/awards.
Hmm. That's pretty much how Google and Apple serve ads. Advertisers pay for Google/Apple to show ads to people who fit a category, but never themselves get the person's information.
There are some concerns with Google Wallet, links to Bank Accounts option that I personally don't like, Search of Purchase History by Google, need for Google to be in purchasing loop that scares customers, banks and merchants as an additional point of failure.
I think people have this privacy concern so backwards. Google's not a concern, but the credit card companies can be.
Personally, I don't mind Google's machines being in the purchase loop. For one thing, it's the future of personalized assistance, where our automated search helpers know what we like and can make more pertinent recommendations.
Ditto for my purchases from Amazon and eBay. They have my address, of course, and know far more about my purchases than most companies. They also make personalized recommendations.
Plus, the credit card companies already use our purchase data to sell targeted demographics to ad agencies. So not much difference there.
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However, when and where we bought something can have a far greater personal impact in the hands of our CC companies... because they also use that info to determine what kind of credit risk we are.
The CC companies analyze all our purchases, and look for unusual patterns such as our visiting an out-of-our-way liquor store during the middle of the day, to get early warnings if we lost our job or are having an affair, or doing anything else that might affect our ability to pay. Which makes sense, but is far more creepy than analyzing for which ads to show someone.
So: targeted ads versus financial status impact. Which is more important? This is one big reason why the banks were willing to pay Apple to keep all that info flowing directly to them. And it's where a proxy buyer (something akin to the way Google Wallet works) could be handy for people who are more serious about privacy.
