Is Your Credit Card Company the Next eHarmony?

As online dating continues to evolve in the direction of enhanced personality matching systems, including visual profile bulders and DNA tests, let us not forget the question, What Does Your Credit-Card Company Know About You?

Takeaway quote: “If you show us what you buy, we can tell you who you are, maybe even better than you know yourself.” Think of the implications of adding credit card data to your dating profile.

Martin could often see precisely what cardholders were purchasing, and he discovered that the brands we buy are the windows into our souls — or at least into our willingness to make good on our debts. His data indicated, for instance, that people who bought cheap, generic automotive oil were much more likely to miss a credit-card payment than someone who got the expensive, name-brand stuff. People who bought carbon-monoxide monitors for their homes or those little felt pads that stop chair legs from scratching the floor almost never missed payments. Anyone who purchased a chrome-skull car accessory or a “Mega Thruster Exhaust System” was pretty likely to miss paying his bill eventually…

IDC says that an individual’s “digital shadow” of information created about them such as surveillance photos, health records and credit reports is larger than the digital persona they create about themselves composed of things like blogs, YouTube videos and MySpace profiles. Via WSJ.

Suppose, during a date, you casually say, “The sugar maples in Harvard Yard were so beautiful every fall term.” Here’s what you’re signaling, as translated by Dr. Miller:

“My S.A.T. scores were sufficiently high (roughly 720 out of 800) that I could get admitted, so my I.Q. is above 135, and I had sufficient conscientiousness, emotional stability and intellectual openness to pass my classes. Plus, I can recognize a tree.”

I’ve heard about using credit card data to assist in the matchmaking process, but the trail went cold a few months ago. Fascinating and perhaps quite useful to larger sites like eHarmony. Let me know if you have seen anything recently on this.