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Comment by zerebubuth | Hacker News Reader

> This system defeats any large payment entity from payment tracking.

Merchants of physical goods must know the identity and delivery address of their customers in order to deliver them. Given how easy many companies find it to embed 3rd party trackers or adverts on their site, it seems reasonable to believe that they will also find it easy to sell this data ("to help detect and prevent fraud") to the payment processing companies.

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True, but at least Taler allows for the consumer to chose merchants who specify they don't sell data. Right now I can't buy anything online and not be tracked by the payment provider unless I use bitcoin. The prepaid credit cards here all require online registration and in store identification, Visa/Mc/Amex then track my purchases. If I show ID to buy $200 worth of Taler in a 7-11, there's no way for my Taler provider to see what I used it for.

> Right now I can't buy anything online and not be tracked by the payment provider unless I use bitcoin

Here are a couple of solutions I've seen but haven't tried:

* Masked Cards by Abine (a privacy service): Abine gives you a card to use and you pay Abine. Obviously, you'll need to trust Abine.

https://dnt.abine.com/#feature/payments

* PaySafeCard: A prepaid card; "You don't have to enter any personal information or bank account or credit card details. Your privacy remains completely protected at all times with paysafecard!"

https://www.paysafecard.com/en-us/

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