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Briefing
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- Advertising Program Complaint – Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed complaint against Google's new advertising program "Store Sales Measurement" introduced in May 2017 that ties online behavior, such as ad clicks, with in-store purchases
- How It Works – Program matches Google services (e.g. Gmail, search, YouTube and maps) user data with credit and debit card records of 70% of U.S. customers, mathematically anonymized and encrypted, which Google turns over as aggregated data to advertisers
- Privacy Concerns – Google obtained debit and credit card purchase records from undisclosed sources without adequate options for users to opt out, and refused to declare how data is obtained
- No Access to Personal Credit Card Data – Google said company (and advertisers) do not have access to names and personal information of individual credit and debit card users but anonymizes transaction data through technology
- Flawed Encrypting Technology – EPIC claims that basis for program's data encrypting technology CryptDB has known flaws, prone to hacks and data breaches
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Accelerator
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Market Disruption
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Sector
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Information Technology, Wholesale and Retail Trade
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Organization
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Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), Google Inc., U.S. Federal Trade Commission
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Source
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Dwoskin, E. and Timberg, C., "Google’s new program to track shoppers sparks a federal privacy complaint",
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Dwoskin, E. and Timberg, C., "Google now knows when its users go to the store and buy stuff",
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Sterling, G., "Google expands offline attribution and launches in-store sales measurement",
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AcceleratingBiz analysis
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Original Publication Date
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July 30, 2017
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