Banana Standoff

Geoffrey A. Fowler bought one banana with a credit card, and then began to peel back the layers on all the companies that were able to track his data based on this single purchase. “You might think my 29-cent swipe at Target would be just between me and my bank. Heavens, no. My banana generated data that’s probably worth more than the banana itself. It ended up with marketers, Target, Amazon, Google and hedge funds, to name a few. Oh, the places a banana will go in the sprawling card-data economy.” WaPo: The spy in your wallet: Credit cards have a privacy problem. (Orange you glad you paid cash?)