Tell Mastercard: Don’t sell our transaction data

Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach:

It makes sense that Mastercard collects data about its cardholders, like how much they spend, where and on what day. What doesn’t make sense is that Mastercard then uses that data for purposes that have nothing to do with being a credit card — like selling it to data brokers, advertisers and other third-party companies.

When companies sell and use our personal data for secondary purposes, it increases the odds our personal information will be exposed in a breach or a hack and end up with scammers. It also fuels the constant bombardment of targeted ads online we’re all subjected to and can’t do anything to stop.

Mastercard doesn’t need to do this. It’s been a credit card company a lot longer than it’s been in the data selling business. Mastercard should commit to using the transaction data it collects for what its customers expect – being a safe, secured credit card, and nothing else.