Slightly off-topic: if you post something with a misleading title that you can improve, please do so. This article has no information at all on how Visa predicts divorce, just the third-hand assertion that they do. An Amazon text search within Supercrunchers yields nothing of value, either.
I've heard rumors that visa uses its purchase records as a leading indicator to trade in stocks. Having all of these sales records gives them a leading indicator of how a particular retailer is performing, before the company releases any statements, or speaks with analysts. While the concept sounded simple, I'm not sure if I believe this because I had no way of knowing how large of an advantage it would translate into. Has anyone else here heard these kinds of stories about visa or banks? Is there are reason why this kind of thing would be illegal or ineffective?
And if you think your purchases say a lot about you, just wait until somebody gets a hold of your social network data.<p>(I am willing to bet that "Percentage of friends who divorced" and "Percentage of friends who divorced recently" both whallop any naive demographic predictor of divorce risk you care to name.)
The comments on that article are telling. The loss of privacy due to inappropriate data mining looks like it may cause at least some people to "go Amish" slowly (now, before I get jumped, I just mean "the avoidance of technology" by "go Amish"; please don't get religious over that).<p>Personally, reading this article makes me glad I never opened a FaceBook account. I wish gmail was not so all-knowing either; I hate seeing very personally directed ads (anti-depressants when I am sad after reading a break-up mail, for example). Just too creepy.
Does Visa actually know what you've bought?<p>"Cardholders who purchased carbon-monoxide detectors, premium birdseed, and felt pads for the bottoms of their chair legs rarely missed a payment."<p>My bank statements only state where something was bought, not what was bought. I'm not aware of a store that only sells felt pads for bottoms of chairs and premium birdseed.
The Underground History of American Education posits that the main factor at work in the school system is the homogenization of people for the benefit of big business. From a tech perspective, it's easy to understand this motivation; wouldn't it be easier to develop that killer mobile coupon app if everyone had a device with the same capabilities?<p>Now I'm beginning to wonder if data mining is making the homogenization of people obsolete, if hundreds of profiles can be created, and it suffices business interests to simply be able to categorize you?
Off-topic, but related to stuff mentioned in the article.<p>How do we relate the idea that we own the data a company like Visa collects about us? For example, our buying habits should be "our data." While I understand the need for privacy, people go on to worry about how Visa will use this information, and it's impact on privacy.<p>Does Visa have the right to use this data to target users?<p>On one hand, we'd be highly upset if Visa didn't use the data it collects in certain cases, like anti-fraud and tracking odd behavior and warning us of it. But then you have an article like this asking for consumer protection.<p>I guess the issue here is one of balance: who owns the data? If it's the user, does the company really have the right to use that data to provide a service with it? Even if it's anti-fraud or simple customer service? This isn't something new, either. It's only become easier and easier to do more accurately as technology grows.<p>On one hand, privacy is important for obvious reasons. On the other hand, generated data is useful and can be used for improving our lives. Just as privacy protects the criminals as well as the innocent, generated data can be used for ill or for good.<p>I don't think I'm asking anything new. I've always been a person that wants to track everything users do. On sites I create, I want to track everything, know everything. Yes, I want to do this so that I can increase profit. But it's only because I believe that a user who attempts to make a purchase and fails really wanted the product, and it's my job to do everything in my power to get that product to him. I have no desire to steal his data, sell his information, or anything else. But I can see how something like this could be misrepresented or misused.<p>Just some thoughts I had on this. I'd like to hear other points of view on both sides of the spectrum. I admit I don't know enough, and while my motives are honest, they are in a way profit driven. Customer services is profit driven (Apple doesn't provide the CS it does because it loses money on it!)! And if anyone has any good links on the topic, please share.
I highly recommend Super Crunchers to anyone who has not yet read it. It is written for the layman, but nonetheless it is highly fascinating and insightful for anyone who is remotely interested in data mining.
According to the article UPS predicts when you are high risk of leaving their service and will offer a sales call. I assume the salesman is allowed to offer perk/discounts to get a customer to try to stay. I'm wondering if these models can be figured out so you can intentionally trigger something like this to get deals from companies that do data mining.
<i>The mobile social network Loopt or its competitors could conceivably predict with 90 percent accuracy where an individual will be tomorrow.</i><p>I would think that Visa would be better positioned to do this than Loopt, because people are more compelled to use their credit cards when they go somewhere. You can't go to a store and forget to pay, although you can forget to checkin.
Political parties have been doing this for some time. Check out <a href="http://www.voterlistsonline.com/version2/site/page.asp?page_id=home" rel="nofollow">http://www.voterlistsonline.com/version2/site/page.asp?page_...</a><p>You can learn a lot about a potential voter (ie is he worth making a stop when canvasing?)<p><i>Purchase Premium Fields, including:<p><pre><code> - Home purchase/mortgage/refinance information
- Presence/ages of children per household
- Magazine subscriptions
- Hunting/fishing licenses
- Charity contributions
- Additional polling options - including Targeted Random Sampling and Normalized Sampling*</code></pre>
Given that the article does not actually talk about how Visa predicts divorce, maybe we can speculate. Here are some ideas:<p>* Meals at two restaurants on same night.<p>* Separate vacations.<p>* Ages approach mid-life.<p>* Card used on personals websites.
It's probably pretty easy, because in addition to <i>what</i> is being bought, Visa knows where the purchases occur. Most people have two clusters for their purchases: work and home. A person who develops a third cluster may be having an affair. If you know what's being bought, you can figure it out with even higher probability.