Spyware snooping around your credit card

Your credit card could soon be tattling on you to marketers.

At least that’s the conclusion being drawn by the Financial Times and Wired after analyzing an online presentation from MasterCard, offering up cardholder data to online marketers looking to zero in on holiday shoppers (the presentation has since been taken down).

Mortgage Rates Finally Hold Their Ground

After moving higher every day this week mortgage rates finally held their ground today.  Despite moderately lower Treasury yields and healthy improvements in the mortgage-backed-securities market, the actual rates that made their way onto lenders' rate sheets represented more of a "ground-holding" than a triumphant "bounce back" to previously lower levels.

Data helps MasterCard and its partners determine advertising that would be most attractive to the credit card user.

Data into DollarsMasterCard, the largest global payment network, is under scrutiny for a data digging project that raises some concerns about privacy. The company was said to have launched a new business whereby it uses consumer data to determine more about their users. This information is then sold to third parties for advertising and marketing campaigns.