When using a Mastercard credit card you not only pay directly for the privilege of having the card in the first place and indirectly by paying merchant fees, but also by allowing Mastercard to generate anonymized and aggregated transaction data which they then share with third parties.
You can, however, opt out of Mastercard’s data analytics by using Mastercard’s deceivingly worded data analytics opt-out form:
- Switzerland – German: https://www.mastercard.ch/de-ch/datenschutz/data-analytics-opt-out.html;
- Switzerland – French: https://www.mastercard.ch/fr-ch/privacy/data-analytics-opt-out.html;
- Germany – German: https://www.mastercard.de/de-de/datenschutz/datenanalyse-abmeldung.html;
- Italy – Italian: https://www.mastercard.it/it-it/vision/essere-azienda-responsabile/privacy/analisi-dei-dati.html;
- Austria – German: https://www.mastercard.at/de-at/datenschutzbestimmungen/datenanalyse-abmeldung.html;
- France – French: https://www.mastercard.fr/fr-fr/vision/entreprise-responsable/protection-de-la-vie-privee/vie-privee/opposition-analyse-donnee.html.
On an unrelated note, always be very cautious when a website recommends entering your credit card credentials.
H/T: Kuketz IT-Security Blog.