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I sometimes search and post things on purpose to attract advertising so I can do research on companies.An extreme form of this is to buy stuff and having it be tracked via Credit Card purchases. You can usually return it and they don't seem to notice. https://t.co/rl7PYcMUfQ

Does anyone know if companies a like stripe or square keep track of that kind of thing? I know they have inventory systems that they could harvest from.My gf bought some mushroom coffee from a farmer's market and started getting advertisements for a boutique brand.

It's possible she was getting recommendations because she's been tied to me as a friend, so it might be coincidence, or just from me looking up lion's mane and chaga coffee. https://t.co/EkgyjKO71Y

Meta-data about who knows who is easily available to those real-time data broker ad based auction houses. No facebook social network required.https://t.co/M1dArJI0fn

FWIW, most of those creepy "retargeted" ads are by google's ad tracking service. The website sets a flag and then asks google to to stalk you whenever you see a google ad. This has been a thing since 2010, and standard operating procedure AFAICT.https://t.co/IZnoyZWxN6

Facebook lets you do similar. Basic idea is that you set this flag when someone adds stuff to their cart. They're trying to coax you back to the site to make the purchase.https://t.co/mX7Q9fJhHWI think this is a waste of money on top of being creepy af.https://t.co/vEiHq1vZcK

This remarketing / retargeting tech doesn't actually need to know if you like boners or not, only that you went to a site that notified a service to coax you back.You can do this with twitter too. https://t.co/pUOJRat7EK

Apple also lets you do this.https://t.co/Peh7vIZheCProbably every advertisement platform lets you follow people around and waste your money in an attempt to get people to impulse buy after they play your foraging game.https://t.co/mfWOKRLBuM

Apple isn't killing advertising, Apple is positioning themselves as a middleman between you and the advertisers by using the current zeitgeist as an excuse to lock down their customers data so that they can be the ones making money off of ads being shown to you.

I have an entire thread on a creative way to split your purchases up to fuck with data analytics platforms. It's way better than simple 'chaff & winnow' techniques because it tells alternate narratives instead of simply being noise.https://t.co/Glz3QCE2Wq

Trick to doing market research with advertising is to reverse engineer plausible 'buyer personas' and guess at what kind of keywords they might be searching for.If you search them yourself, you may not get the same company, but will get competitors.https://t.co/WukuXi25ww

Chrysler targeting millennials using tech+minivans you say?Who could have guessed that researching basal body temperature (and by association pregnancy associated circadian rythm function) would net a bunch of ads for mini-vans showing up everywhere.https://t.co/xQtaCQbwqI

More often than not, these competitors will be some company that just got a round of funding for "Growth" in a series B or later round (trying to 'scale' after 'nailing it').I keep tabs of who's doing this and laugh when they are left with poor returns. Chasing the dragon.

After reading this thread moments ago, I'm getting ads for PPC that is literally telling me about how your use of retargeting is likely a waste of money. #adnoyanceDo you think these sites don't use this method already? https://t.co/lsdCBMTwNf

Yah, mattresses ads don't work. But its b/c the market is saturated & people are bored of seeing every mattress under the sun being pushed thru marketing channels.Congratulations, on reading this twitter will think you are interested in mattresses.https://t.co/OWf1efKFEk

But unlike most matresses who are leveraging genuine innovation (being able to ship your matress is an innovation, in the sense that it undermines shipping logistics of older mattresses), Gravity isn't innovative: Its a brand trying to build a niche market with high margins.

"These transactions have given rise to a complex data-selling ecosystem. At the heart of it are credit card processing networks, including Visa, American Express, and Mastercard, the latter of which took in $4.1 billion in 2019"https://t.co/MPGTImBbrahttps://t.co/e5B6goKTXx

"But while technology has served as a gateway for many, a lack of internet access, affordable tools and the know-how to use them has created a social digital divide. Closing that divide is a major priority of..." https://t.co/2uZOYYtDTAhttps://t.co/2AAHLTSqGD

You will be tracked. And you will like it.What are you, some kind of climate terrorist or something?https://t.co/TEFk22jMqXhttps://t.co/03KKkcsfzx

Are you now or ever been involved with a climate terrorist?https://t.co/bqU2GAbnL0

"The system is called "hotwatch" and it's basically a mechanism for law enforcement officials to track credit card purchases through a centralized system without a warrant. They just have to request the information, and voila." https://t.co/bJEHhJU4wh

"The reality is far more complicated. In one sense, cardholders are safer from identity theft than ever before. At the same time, they’re now shopping in a panopticon, with companies tracking and analyzing their purchases in near real time."https://t.co/MPGTImjAzC

"When a middleman becomes part of the process, that company often gets to learn about the transaction — and under our weak privacy laws has a lot of leeway to use that information as it sees fit."https://t.co/g43Ig9A9rl

"But data brokers go about their business with little or no oversight. While there are laws on the books that protect the privacy of Americans’ health and financial information, they do not cover data brokers’ marketing activities."https://t.co/Ygwuqj5ti1 https://t.co/mxXrkDdG33


Purchase hotwatch. The shit I infer from fidget spinner sales data.https://t.co/3ZfcivEuMwhttps://t.co/6QEvmPhucU https://t.co/8dSfihs0uB


@RabbitBusiness @SniperZero Roughly speaking that map is also a map of internet connectivity penetration. But there are major city centers with high connectivity that don't show up. It's because of state regulations afaict. Fun: not violating 4th amendment if feds look into it, because it's not 'your data'.

Inventory on file on cloud hosting providers.https://t.co/IUYwOFSMYS https://t.co/epU3OltN8t


"By buying data rather than obtaining it pursuant to a subpoena, warrant, or court order, federal agencies are circumventing the basic safeguard against abusive policing enshrined in the Fourth Amendment" https://t.co/rzL9Sr1pEm

"Even peer-to-peer exchanges that would be beyond oversight [...] become subject to precise scrutiny. In attempting to remove the third party (bank/government) from the exchange process, [...] enshrines the authority it attempts to displace."https://t.co/SU20ZvVu2y

"a somewhat evangelical cult, whose adherents make serious claims about techno-financial eschatology and believe that all of their (monetary) actions should be recorded with perfect fidelity forever so they get precisely the consequences they deserve." https://t.co/ogfnIte16r

Kinda funny when you think about it.https://t.co/MvEbsxFUuS

"It was sort of the sense we were gonna change the world.We were gonna give people more control over their money. We had all these ideas about getting rid of central banks, and creating a new currency.We never quite got to the Bitcoin stage of it..."https://t.co/EeUJwsKJzl

I remember hearing about crypto-backed credit cards on blab(dot)im (~2015). I think it was from up in Canada.That's what I've always wanted: a middleman tracking cryptocurrency spending. /sEverything old is new again https://t.co/v8iQEqDzBP https://t.co/ocHcjNfZzu

Introducing one tap payment with MasterCard PayPass!https://t.co/YNUnLl76VBGet yours today! Or in 2012 when it was introduced.https://t.co/6r0OJdA8D1

"To be clear, this data is not of any individuals — it's anonymized and in aggregate — but the trend is unmistakable."https://t.co/ZXphB7WRY0

Introducing one tap payment with Visa PayWAVE!https://t.co/INWJnH8UaIGet yours today! Or in 2010 when it was introduced.

Visa can also see an 'unmistakable trend'"With more than $1 billion spent on crypto-linked Visa cards in the first half of 2021, it’s clear that the crypto community sees value in linking digital currencies to Visa’s global network."https://t.co/Oh18JIWzWm

I think it's funny that there's and uptick in people buying physical mechanical card readers and sending in credit transactions via mail.Does this mean I could technically do a crypto entirely via paper & post?https://t.co/hXvgqxRR64

"This broad acceptance is partly because most credit card issuers now operate under Visa [...] and MasterCard [...] These massive payment networks work out acceptance agreements with merchants so that issuers don’t have to do it individually."https://t.co/sIsDReKdSP

"you wouldn’t need cryptocurrencies if you had a digital U.S. currency" — Jerome Hayden Powellhttps://t.co/z8lewrtVqL🔜https://t.co/khJjweEhS5 https://t.co/huB1iz5L8x


I'm a good person, just look at my transaction history! I've got level 23 in brown-nosing, and 85 in state phallus idol worship.https://t.co/Jb2NpULpi9

I swear Mr. PooPolice That wasn't my shit on the side of the road, someone stole my portable loo and dumped it to frame me so I couldn't get alms this month.https://t.co/0t0Q4g7y1g

I can imagine a 'social credit score' system incorporating stool samples. If your feces is found on the street, your score is docked & a penalty accrued on some nondescript public blockchain.This would be a very bad, inhumane treatment of people.DO NOT let this future happen.

"There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies..."https://t.co/VIkKvcfHYk

Is it a crime to shit on the sidewalk?https://t.co/rvyx09qU3t

I'm imagining a public blockchain that logs feces, and a private company can subscribe to it to decide if they are willing to do business with them. Not the kind of shitcoin we wanted, but the kind of shitcoin we deserve.https://t.co/LdkIjZMbKN

An observation I realized I hadn't expressed before: if a private company starts pushing for more growth, the fact that they are spending more time on growth is usually a direct result of a recent boost in their subscriber numbers. https://t.co/HVXgD0dlKM

The nice thing about SMBs and startups in general is that they all tend to be smaller, so the space of possible team structures is easier to guess. The larger ones need more sleuthing to explore longer time trends in how they developed over time.