Google links offline sales with online advertising spend

In 2017 the Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission asking the agency to block Google's Store Sales Measurement service, which the company introduced in May at the 2017 Google Marketing Next event. Google's stated goal was to link offline sales to online ad spending. EPIC argued that the purchasing information Google collected was highly sensitive, revealing details about consumers purchases, health, and private lives, and that Google was endangering consumer privacy by refusing to disclose its partnerships with commercial data brokers. Google, however, claimed that the data in question was used with consent, was encrypted and aggregated, and contained no identifiable credit card data. In May 2018, EPIC wrote to the FTC asking it to act on the complaint. 

https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-told-to-come-clean-on-how-it-tracks-what-you-buy-offline/

https://epic.org/privacy/google/purchase-tracking/default.html

Writer: Liam Tung, EPIC

Publication: ZDNet, EPIC