What does Citibank, Chase, BofA, [insert generic evil bank here] know about you?

This fascinating article(New York Times Magazine) scratches the surface into how credit card issues are mining your historical transactions and making conclusions on the basis of that data. Since banks employ loads of smart researchers and Ph.Ds, we probably shouldn't be surprised that the data is being used in tihs fashion.

I'm split on this. My "consumer rights" half doesn't like that my interest rates may shoot up because I purchased chrome accessories for my (non-existent) car. Apparently data from a Canadian bank has shown that people that purchase chrome accessories are way more likely to default on their debt. Since I like chrome accessories, should I have to pay for their sins???

On the other hand, as somebody that is fascinated with new uses of data (wow, I really am geeky), I'm fascinated by the fact that we can make reasonably reliable inferences about somebody's personality from their purchasing history.

I'd be interested to learning more about their methods, or even finding some sample data to play with. Either way, expect more of this in the future....

here's the article in the New York Times Magazine. Found via NPR's Planet Money Podcast and Blog.