7/6/2023 0 Comments Cryptomator mega![]() ![]() And of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that banks frequently – almost universally – sell your transaction data to data brokers who use your shopping habits to build a better profile on you, your personality, habits, values, and more for a variety of reasons, usually advertising, but who’s to say that it can’t and doesn’t get abused for other purpose? (Spoiler alert: it does.) These are just a few of the ways that financial institutions can wield control of our own money and weaponize it against those they wish. And of course, in 2022 people who donated to truckers that were on strike to protest vaccine mandates found their donations blocked, while PornHub was blocked from receiving payments from Visa and Mastercard. The UK uses financial data to penalize welfare recipients they feel are abusing the system, even for things as small as buying name-brand products instead of generic alternatives. In the previously-linked blog post, I talked about how American Express lowered one man’s credit limit because he shopped at Walmart and aggregated data showed that most people who shopped there had poor credit or payment histories. The problem is further exacerbated by the manipulative and hostile actions banks sometimes take toward individuals and organizations. I was unable to find an exact breakdown of how much money banks make off businesses versus how much they make off individuals, but I’d be shocked if the numbers aren’t vastly skewed toward the businesses. They just so happened to decide “hey, we can make more money if we offer services to individuals, too,” so they did. Banks originally existed to serve other businesses. Prior to World War II, banks didn’t even offer many services to the general public. ![]() ![]() There’s a reason “bankers hours” just so happen to coincide with the traditional 9-5 working hours, making it nearly impossible to do any in-person errands involving financial institutions: you’re not their primary customer. Let’s start at the top: banks are not your friend. So without further ado, let’s talk about financial privacy. This is a topic I’ve covered before, however with so many asking about it it’s clear that it wouldn’t hurt to bring some updated thoughts to the discussion. In the past week, I’ve had a number of people ask me the same question: namely what are my thoughts on privacy and banking (with some variation and additional expansions). ![]()
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