Visa's Blueprint For Targeted Advertising

This is far more serious than people realize.  But there are already 'data aggregator' companies that buy and sell all kinds of our spending transactions, utility & phone records, medical records, internet activities including emails.  Google & Facebook for example, and others companies like Acxiom that stay out of the public eye, and network administrators who can make some nice cash selling off server-captured data.  Any transaction we make goes through a multitude of unknown servers before it gets to its final destination.

They are getting away with this because it is being done in the name of advertising, which seems innocuous to most people. But this same data is also being sold to governments, police agencies, anyone who will pay for it, worldwide.