[HN Gopher] EU agency advises against using search and browsing ...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       EU agency advises against using search and browsing history for
       credit scores
        
       Author : imagine99
       Score  : 149 points
       Date   : 2021-08-28 13:17 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (therecord.media)
 (TXT) w3m dump (therecord.media)
        
       | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
       | So, on the assumption that this might start happening before it
       | gets outlawed: Anyone know what queries my bot should be plugging
       | into search engines to game this particular system? Shouldn't be
       | too hard to have a machine ask Google 3000 times a day "what to
       | do when you're super rich and deserve unlimited credit", right?
        
         | lmkg wrote:
         | 20th-Century advice: "Dress for the job you want, not the job
         | you have."
         | 
         | 21st-Century advice: "Google for the problems you want, not the
         | problems you have."
        
         | prepend wrote:
         | I did Google "how to invest $2 million" a few times from
         | different devices to see how it would change my search history.
         | 
         | It's hard to tell systematically but my YouTube ads became
         | super douschey. And my iheartradio ads and Spotify ads were
         | also related.
         | 
         | Is there a site of funny search poisoning? Or a practical joke
         | set of how many times you have to search "domestic abuse
         | defense attorney" a friend's phone to surprise them?
        
           | bobthepanda wrote:
           | presumably, the people who seriously have $2M to invest are
           | not just googling how to do it, so you may just be getting
           | the set of ads for the people likely to actually put that in
           | Google
           | 
           | as far as practical jokes go, it would probably be a lot
           | easier to sign up someone to an unsavory email list.
        
             | prepend wrote:
             | > unsavory email list.
             | 
             | Of course that too. It's not exclusive with search
             | poisoning.
             | 
             | > $2million
             | 
             | It seems that way in that it's either stupid advertisers
             | that think rich people Google that. Or people thinking
             | there's a mindset of get rich quick, crypto scams who
             | Google that.
        
               | bobthepanda wrote:
               | > It's not exclusive with search poisoning.
               | 
               | Not to say that it is, but email lists being sold around
               | is table stakes for advertising and search, so that might
               | be faster and easier than trying to change ad results via
               | search queries.
        
             | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
             | It might not be that focused; ~nobody with $2MM asks Google
             | for investment advice, but "how to invest" and "how to
             | invest _to make_ millions " are searches worth targeting
             | (and would match that search).
        
               | ljm wrote:
               | Rumour has it that Jeff Bezos AltaVista'd how to make 180
               | billion dollars before getting the idea to start Amazon.
        
               | laurent92 wrote:
               | What response did it give? Where does the anecdote come
               | from?
        
             | biren34 wrote:
             | Back in high school (pre-internet), we'd sign up a
             | particular friend every time we saw one of the information
             | collection boxes for 24 hour fitness.
             | 
             | He could never figure out why they just wouldn't stop
             | calling him
        
             | laurent92 wrote:
             | > presumably, the people who seriously have $2M to invest
             | are not just googling how to do it
             | 
             | If I sell my startup in a few years, it would be worth
             | 4-10m$, and I wonder what I might do with the money. I find
             | it funny that you dismiss the idea of not knowing how to
             | invest millions of dollars, but when you've worked all your
             | life, you don't have time to build a network of people who
             | can receive your investment, and you're not used to
             | actually having this money outside of the startup vehicle.
             | And given 86% of billionaires of this generation are first-
             | generation, I wouldn't be surprised if it were the same for
             | millionaires. I keep hearing stories of:
             | 
             | - Youtubers,
             | 
             | - Startup founded,
             | 
             | - Dropshipping, but not dropshippers, just people who sell
             | services to gullible get-rich-quick dropshippers.
        
               | himlion wrote:
               | Crypto traders are an exception to this, they'll just
               | keep it invested in crypto :)
        
               | dheera wrote:
               | Most people that have that problem don't Google "How to
               | invest $X million", they google for things like "best
               | clean energy stocks" or "best index funds" or "should i
               | buy Ethereum or Bitcoin" or "bay area financial advisors"
               | or "angel investing getting started" etc.
        
               | bobthepanda wrote:
               | Yeah, I'm not saying that people who come into money are
               | investing geniuses, but you will lose your money pretty
               | quickly if you type in how much money you have into
               | Google and click the first link promising a get even
               | richer scheme.
        
               | dorkwood wrote:
               | If you get $10m aren't you, like, finished? You escaped
               | the game. It's over. Why does investing matter anymore?
        
               | fortran77 wrote:
               | Taxes and inflation will kill you.
        
               | dimnsionofsound wrote:
               | So that your escape money doesn't get eaten away by
               | inflation. You could put it in a low-ish risk portfolio
               | composed of some bonds, indexes, etc so that it continues
               | to make some amount of money.
        
             | akomtu wrote:
             | Asking how to invest 2M probably means the "investor" has
             | won money in a lottery and can be lured into "investing"
             | them back into a casino.
        
           | bombadilo wrote:
           | Do you have adblockers or did you turn them off for this
           | experiment? I would assume most people on HN have adblockers
           | and other browser ad ons to prevent the malicious tracking
           | that so many companies are hell bent on using. It's an
           | anomaly for me to see any ads on my devices.
        
             | prepend wrote:
             | I used chrome with no adblockers. I only use chrome for
             | Google sites so I don't bother with adblockers.
        
           | jobigoud wrote:
           | There once was a website called ruinmysearchhistory.com that
           | would open a new tab and launch many Google searches on
           | unsavory terms.
           | 
           | The original list of terms can still be found here: https://w
           | ww.reddit.com/r/InternetIsBeautiful/comments/4nc763...
        
           | CamperBob2 wrote:
           | Try Googling _mesothelioma symptoms_ if you want to see how
           | deep this particular rabbit hole goes (and cost some
           | ambulance-chasing law firms some money while you 're at it.)
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | 908B64B197 wrote:
         | Other than the ethical concerns, that's why I wouldn't bother
         | with searching the users search queries.
        
         | edu wrote:
         | A couple of years ago Mozilla built a tool to trick trackers
         | into believing you have a certain profile (rich, among others).
         | 
         | It worked by opening 100s of tabs but I don't remember if it
         | issued any query to Google.
         | 
         | The tool is Track This: https://trackthis.link/
        
         | bserge wrote:
         | It might be harder than it seems, Google is incredibly AIcist.
         | I hit their threshold manually sometimes (it's like a dozen or
         | so queries per minute) :D
        
           | tpmx wrote:
           | Those "we have detected unusual traffic" messages after
           | unusually heavy (hey, we're not all average in our usage
           | patterns) but very human usage are kinda evil. I wasted so
           | much time wiping the machine and reinstalling the OS etc
           | after getting paranoid that I had some undetectable kind of
           | malware before I caught on.
        
             | londons_explore wrote:
             | It usually means you're behind carrier grade nat or some
             | other shared IP and someone else is running a bot.
        
               | tpmx wrote:
               | I wasn't behind CGNAT. Had a dedicated public ipv4 ip. I
               | was just using google a lot, sometimes.
        
               | londons_explore wrote:
               | Google does bot detection on a /24 basis. So you were
               | still sharing with 253 other households most likely.
        
               | tpmx wrote:
               | That would be idiotic. I don't think Googlers are idiots.
        
               | matsemann wrote:
               | Nah, happens quite often when Google refuses to serve the
               | results you're asking for (ignoring a keyword, using
               | something it believes is a synonym but is actually not in
               | this context etc.), and one therefore do many successive
               | almost identical searches with small tweaks.
        
             | Ekaros wrote:
             | Yeah, I have seen that as well... Usually when I try to
             | actually find something and start tuning my query. Don't
             | know if when you start building complex queries does it
             | just get heavy and they have some threshold after which it
             | doesn't make money anymore for them. So they block you...
        
       | crispyambulance wrote:
       | Wait a second, the article suggests that a credit reporting
       | agency could simply engage with google or other data brokers and
       | obtain browsing history, NOT simply statistical target
       | demographic roll-ups, but browsing data for actual specific named
       | individuals.
       | 
       | Is that really possible?
        
         | White_Wolf wrote:
         | For the majority of people it is doable if you start gathering
         | enough data (from all sources you can) to link devices and
         | browsers that one person owns. Not easy for the average person
         | but with the size of some of these behemoths... 100% possible.
        
         | asiachick wrote:
         | From Google, No! Google does not share user data.
         | 
         | From "other data brokers" maybe
        
       | Tycho wrote:
       | It just boggles the fucking mind. How are credit score companies
       | even legal in the first place? Isn't the point of GDPR (and all
       | the other data protection laws) to stop companies collecting your
       | personal info and then sharing it with other parties against your
       | own interests? Can I call up Experian and demand they delete my
       | file? Please someone just class-action sue these guys into
       | oblivion.
        
       | oblak wrote:
       | I have no agency to back my claims but yeah, I would also like to
       | advise against using deeply personal stuff to determine anyone's
       | effective social score.
       | 
       | Oh, you eat too much, or the wrong things. Oh, but smoke, drink.
       | Oh, you're exercising enough. Oh, you're exercising too much. Oh,
       | you're just exercising the right amount.
       | 
       | I've not even touched the browsing history yet. Surely the end
       | goal here is not simply exploiting big data they have on
       | everyone. Outrageous as that may be, that would also mean the
       | very final end of any pretence of privacy online. Everything
       | finally tied to our legal real personas. Ugh...
        
       | hyperman1 wrote:
       | I always tought a credit score was an American ism, maybe
       | including UK and Ireland for the EU. Does anyone know if there
       | exists something like credit scores in Belgium, and how you find
       | out what yours is?
        
         | the_third_wave wrote:
         | In Sweden it is common for companies to check on income and
         | payment records before accepting purchase orders. Income data
         | is provided by the tax authorities while payment records are
         | available through the enforcement agency (state bailiff,
         | "Kronofogden"). If your income is deemed to be too low or you
         | have a derelict payment on record (these records are in place
         | for 3 years after the payment has been completed) you will be
         | denied credit in which case you'll have to pay up-front.
        
           | zinekeller wrote:
           | But this is more like based on government data rather than, I
           | know this is very American, private data shared by companies
           | (and usually handled badly, whether in cybersecurity or
           | identity correlation terms).
           | 
           | Also, a credit checking association boasted that their
           | members' data is 95% accurate - so that means that around 15
           | million Americans do have devastating errors on their credit
           | score (through no fault of their own).
        
             | the_third_wave wrote:
             | The data comes from governmental institutions but the
             | actual checking is done by private companies like UC [1]
             | and Ratsit [2].
             | 
             | [1] https://www.uc.se/
             | 
             | [2] https://www.ratsit.se/
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | Hamuko wrote:
         | Finland only has a negative credit system (basically a record
         | of payment delinquencies) but there are plans to introduce a
         | positive credit system similar to the US.
        
           | mimsee wrote:
           | Would you happen to have a source or link to an article
           | mentioning about this?
        
             | AnssiH wrote:
             | Current private negative registries:
             | 
             | - https://www.asiakastieto.fi/web/en/about-us/about-credit-
             | dat...
             | 
             | - https://www.dnb.com/fi-fi/tuotteet/bisnode-risk-guardian/
             | (Finnish only)
             | 
             | Current legislation:
             | https://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/2007/20070527
             | (Finnish and Swedish only, Google translate of Swedish
             | text: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=se&tl=en&u=
             | https:/... )
             | 
             | I'm not aware of a good English page describing the current
             | system in detail, though. The Finnish pages of e.g. the
             | Asiakastieto registry are more detailed.
             | 
             | Planned positive public registry:
             | https://www.vero.fi/en/positivecreditregister/
        
         | heurisko wrote:
         | In Germany, there is SCHUFA, which is a credit score.
         | 
         | To rent in Germany, I had to have a SCHUFA check and a letter
         | from my previous landlord saying I didn't have any outstanding
         | debts, the "Mietschuldenfreiheitsbescheinigung."
        
           | Sharlin wrote:
           | Yeah, but "negative" credit score (ie. the only information
           | they store is whether you have been a "bad" customer) is
           | different from the US-style credit score system.
           | 
           | > Mietschuldenfreiheitsbescheinigung
           | 
           | Also, that must be the most German word ever.
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | bserge wrote:
           | Germany is like a proto-US.
           | 
           | Ignore the media spin, it's the most capitalist country in
           | Europe, where unequal contracts rule supreme and you get
           | fines and prison time for nearly anything.
           | 
           | I'm surprised the socialist policies stuck around, although
           | there's still time to get rid of them.
        
             | throwaway210222 wrote:
             | > where contracts rule supreme
             | 
             | What, other than a contract that complies with the Basic
             | Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, should be more
             | supreme between two parties freely trading with each other?
             | 
             | The weather report? A poem?
        
               | bserge wrote:
               | Somehow you replied before my edit. I meant unequal
               | contracts, where one party has more power and the other
               | is screwed if they, for whatever reason, cannot fulfill
               | it.
               | 
               | Which is to say, most contracts.
               | 
               | The requirements and punishment for breach of contract
               | are rather nutty even compared to the US.
        
             | heurisko wrote:
             | I don't get the media spin in the UK. I don't expect
             | Germany to be anything other than capitalist, or as they
             | say "ordoliberal", which is a market with strong state
             | regulation.
             | 
             | Considering their socialist policies started with Bismarck,
             | I think they'll remain. But I think perhaps US-centric
             | media somewhat over-eggs "socialist Europe".
        
             | luckylion wrote:
             | That's a weird take, meaningful fines are rare, except for
             | parking/speeding tickets (because it's an easy way for
             | cities to get cash), prison is very rare, you have to
             | really go for the large crimes to not get probation. The
             | one exception is coercive detention ("Beugehaft"), which
             | they hand out instead of fines. It's a dumb concept, but
             | it's also not that common.
             | 
             | I also generally disagree that Germany is capitalist. Most
             | markets are heavily regulated and full of subsidies, taxes
             | are extremely high, and there's a fundamental mistrust of
             | individualism.
        
         | AnssiH wrote:
         | Many (most?) EU countries have credit score systems and/or
         | companies, and the details on how they work differ on a
         | country-by-country basis:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_score#By_country
         | 
         | In some countries credit score registries are restricted by law
         | to only holding information on delinquent debt, so an average
         | person has no entries in the credit score registries. This is
         | the case here in Finland currently, though a national positive
         | credit register is being planned for 2024
         | (https://www.vero.fi/en/positivecreditregister/).
        
           | throw_m239339 wrote:
           | Certainly not most, given your own list. Remember there are
           | 27 countries in the UE and UK isn't one of them.
        
           | user5994461 wrote:
           | You conclude that most EU countries have a credit score by
           | linking to a Wikipedia article showing that almost none
           | European country has a credit score?
        
             | Throwaway197401 wrote:
             | It's not like the US system. It's a negative credit score
             | meaning that you start as a good lender and then you can
             | only fuck it up by not paying your bills.
             | 
             | In the US we have positive credit score meaning you have to
             | show you are a good lender to get a better score.
             | 
             | The european ones are mostly much less granular.
        
             | AnssiH wrote:
             | > You conclude that most EU countries have a credit score
             | by linking to a Wikipedia article showing that almost none
             | European country has a credit score?
             | 
             | The Wikipedia article does _not_ show that almost no
             | European country has a credit score or credit reporting
             | system. It simply provides examples from various countries
             | and is obviously not exhaustive, like most lists in
             | Wikipedia.
             | 
             | If you want to just see how many EU countries have any
             | credit registries, these World Bank links have good data:
             | 
             | - Public registries:
             | https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IC.CRD.PUBL.ZS
             | 
             | - Private registries:
             | https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IC.CRD.PRVT.ZS
             | 
             | They show most EU countries have such registries. I did go
             | through a dozen countries manually before finding the above
             | handy links, though...
             | 
             | Of course one could argue whether or not those systems
             | which only allow negative entries (and thus most people
             | will have no data there) for a credit check should be
             | considered credit _score_ systems.
        
               | throw_m239339 wrote:
               | Credit registry =/= credit score system. You are moving
               | the goal post here. Your previous assertion is just
               | false. the US system is brutal, unfair and shouldn't be
               | reproduced anywhere else in the world at first place.
        
           | hyperman1 wrote:
           | I count 5 countries of the 27 eu countries in that list, and
           | it seems half of them have a gov based system. So the
           | situation seems different from the US.
           | 
           | I always get orwellian vibes from the US system. Some random
           | big brotherish corporation looks at you in any way it can,
           | then runs some completely untransparant system to produce an
           | unreliable number, with no appeal. That number determines
           | your chances in life.
           | 
           | Then again, my governement keeps track of how well I do on
           | repaying my loans and tells that to lending orgs. I assume
           | someone with a US style 'gubberment' thought process might
           | recoil in horror even if I rather like it.
        
             | Sharlin wrote:
             | The craziest thing about the US system is that you _have_
             | to use credit (and pay it back punctually) as opposed to
             | debit just in order to convince future creditors that you
             | 're a good customer. Migrants to the US can run into a
             | Kafkaesque situation where they need a credit score to get
             | a credit card, but they need a credit card to accumulate a
             | credit score first...
        
               | bluecalm wrote:
               | It's especially crazy because in most of Europe I am
               | pretty sure a mere possession of a credit card is
               | correlated with being more likely to get into financial
               | trouble.
               | 
               | I never had a credit card. Among my friends who do well
               | financially most don't have a credit card or just got it
               | because their bank offered a crippled debit card that
               | wasn't accepted at hotels and car rental. They never use
               | the credit line. On the other have out of the financially
               | irresponsible people I know most have multiple credit
               | cards and use them as a credit line in regular basis.
        
               | nathanlied wrote:
               | Can confirm your experience. Although in my circles
               | credit cards are more common due to kickbacks - big
               | discounts at places you'd normally go to anyway, or
               | straight up financial incentives. Everyone prefers debit
               | however, and credit cards are definitely not the norm.
        
               | hyperman1 wrote:
               | Most people around here only have a credit card to deal
               | with USA focused internet shops. I never used the credit
               | possibilities of mine, felt worried when using it, and
               | cancelled it when iDeal etc became more common on the
               | net.
        
               | dudul wrote:
               | Does this really happen? I migrated to the US and had no
               | problem getting a CC. The limit was low, just a few Ks at
               | first, but it gave me a chance to start building credit
               | record.
        
               | Gene_Parmesan wrote:
               | It certainly does, depending of course on where you
               | migrated from. Someone from a first world country and who
               | has established assets is going to be in an easier
               | position than someone who doesn't. And unfortunately, in
               | this country credit isn't really an option, everything
               | from potential landlords to employers can use it against
               | you.
        
               | schrectacular wrote:
               | Credit Unions usually offer secured credit cards as an
               | onramp. Put $500 in a special savings account, get a
               | credit card with a $400 line.
        
               | pessimizer wrote:
               | They'll also let you get a secured loan for something you
               | were planning to pay for in cash (e.g. a car), but
               | instead you dump that cash into an account which
               | automatically pays down the loan balance every month. I
               | did it. The interest rate for the loan was a fraction of
               | a percent higher than the interest on the account.
               | 
               | It's monumentally stupid, though, and says nothing about
               | my ability to pay off future debt.
        
         | Joeri wrote:
         | Specifically for Belgium there is the CKP, which keeps track of
         | all loans, including how timely they are paid, and which credit
         | providers have to consult before granting any loan or line of
         | credit.
         | 
         | https://www.nbb.be/nl/kredietcentrales/centrale-voor-krediet...
         | 
         | They also keep a black list of people who should be denied
         | credit.
        
           | kome wrote:
           | so, in Belgium there is no creepy credit score, but a public
           | registry.
           | 
           | That's a more intelligent solution to the problem, like in
           | the rest of Europe.
        
         | xen0 wrote:
         | Funnily enough, despite the advertising, there really is no
         | such thing as a Credit 'Score' in the UK.
         | 
         | Lenders get information about you from a Credit Reference
         | Agency and will have their own internal systems to make
         | decisions based on that. You can ask the reference agency for a
         | copy of your credit report.
        
       | MisterBastahrd wrote:
       | If you want to get the average suburban Republican to lose their
       | shit, all you have to do is tell them that what they do in
       | private will affect them in real life. Imagine trying to explain
       | to your wife that, when she takes care of all the household bills
       | expenses, that your credit score never budges above 700 because
       | of the weird late-night things you do when nobody's watching.
        
       | WA wrote:
       | I don't get it: How do credit scoring companies in the EU even
       | get access to browsing data or my search history?
       | 
       | Wasn't the GDPR introduced to prevent data sharing like this in
       | the first place if I don't explicitly opt-in to this particular
       | use case, like, as a separate toggle and not "by using our
       | service you agree to our privacy policy".
       | 
       | I'm confused.
        
         | sfvisser wrote:
         | If you read the linked article by the IMF you start to get it,
         | bunch of ECB economists exploring innovation in financial
         | products and writing a meaningless blogpost about it. Bunch of
         | buzzwords, nothing interesting.
         | 
         | In their defense, they write: "Fintech resolves the dilemma by
         | tapping various nonfinancial data: the type of browser and
         | hardware used to access the internet, the history of online
         | searches and purchases."
         | 
         | So it seems they're not recommending this usage of data persee,
         | but just say fintech is already doing this.
        
           | swiley wrote:
           | That's not innovation.
        
         | thepangolino wrote:
         | Some members of the European Parliament have probably been
         | lobbied to implement something like that and asked for an
         | opinion of their in house experts on the matter.
        
       | kome wrote:
       | This Italian startups does exactly this kind of Orwellian credit
       | scoring - like checking what browser, email provider and how old
       | your computer is: https://www.fido.id/
        
       | Goety wrote:
       | 'advises against'
       | 
       | well a bit too late for that
        
       | swiley wrote:
       | Everyone is going to start using TOR and similar for everything.
        
         | Quillbert182 wrote:
         | Yay, TOR speed increase.
        
       | rob_c wrote:
       | Slightly concerning how far the overton window has shifted in the
       | last few years...
        
       | eurasiantiger wrote:
       | The only way to realistically enforce this is through software
       | developers refusing to implement, like that's gonna happen, or by
       | whistleblowers, but by then, it is already too late.
        
         | izacus wrote:
         | Really? Because the obvious way to "realistically enforce" this
         | is by passing legislation banning such practices and demanding
         | transparency in credit score calculations. And then massively
         | fining credit companies which use those factors in calculation.
         | 
         | Not sure how the heck would a single developer refuse to
         | implement a system that earns boatload of money.
        
           | rob_c wrote:
           | I'm now expecting someone to claim they accidentally left the
           | Chinese tools on for their EU accounts and only noticed when
           | those with an interest in "squares" got hit with higher loan
           | rates.
        
           | manachar wrote:
           | Exactly. Regulation is the primary method necessary to ensure
           | that the market doesn't do an unethical but profitable thing.
           | 
           | The other approach, which is employed by other specialties,
           | is to have a professional trade accreditation group create
           | certain standards that must be upheld by all people in that
           | group. Doctors and lawyers are examples of how this works,
           | and in what ways it fails too.
        
         | imtringued wrote:
         | Yeah you can't touch the powerful entities, let the small guys
         | do it and pretend it's enough.
        
       | dilippkumar wrote:
       | I wonder if we are looking at the motivation for such a scheme
       | backwards.
       | 
       | The 2008 Banking disaster happened because banks were happy to
       | give out tons of loans to people who couldn't pay them back. The
       | response was to tighten various parameters that should have made
       | it harder for banks to give out bad loans.
       | 
       | I wonder if this is a way to break out of those handcuffs and
       | allow banks to go back to giving out _more_ loans.  "Yeah this
       | person has a terrible credit score, but look at their browsing
       | history. They are looking at healthy diets, they are comparing
       | prices and shopping cheap - all signs of a responsible adult. Why
       | should we deny this upstanding member of the society access to
       | credit and help them become homeowners?"
       | 
       | Update: Thinking about it some more, looking at browsing history
       | is a fantastic way to identify vulnerable members of the society
       | who can be talked into signing themselves up for new loans.
       | History shows that bankers have loved to do this.
        
         | johnchristopher wrote:
         | > "Yeah this person has a terrible credit score, but look at
         | their browsing history. They are looking at healthy diets, they
         | are comparing prices and shopping cheap - all signs of a
         | responsible adult. Why should we deny this upstanding member of
         | the society access to credit and help them become homeowners?"
         | 
         | Oh god, that could be my browsing history but it's not me nor
         | what I do and they would be in for a rude awakening.
        
       | mnd999 wrote:
       | This is pretty obviously a bad idea. Credit agencies already have
       | all the relevant information, whether you take out loans or
       | credit cards and whether you pay them on time.
       | 
       | Anything else is at best correlation, which as we know is not the
       | same as causation.
        
         | Sharlin wrote:
         | Having a "credit score" is not common in the EU in the first
         | place, and even rarer is using credit just in order to prove
         | that you're a good customer.
        
           | n_ary wrote:
           | Not sure about EU but Germany has SCHUFA scores, which hold
           | equal power and works similarly.
        
             | TheOtherHobbes wrote:
             | The EU doesn't have a common credit score system because it
             | doesn't have a common consumer banking system.
             | 
             | Some countries have individual systems, but others don't.
        
         | 6510 wrote:
         | You can get a bad score over truly stupid incidents. There is
         | clearly a market.
        
         | londons_explore wrote:
         | Correlation is plenty if your goal is to be right most of the
         | time and have the loans you sell be slightly more profitable
         | than a competitor.
         | 
         | People forget that all these big data schemes are rather
         | inaccurate at the individual user level, and that doesn't
         | matter to the companies that use the data.
        
         | HALtheWise wrote:
         | Unfortunately, while that may be enough data for you as a
         | (presumably) relatively affluent position, there are a _lot_ of
         | people who aren't able to get loans today because they don't
         | have that sort of history. For the subset of those people who
         | would in fact be able to pay back loans, they have a ton to
         | gain from improvements in credit score accuracy.
         | 
         | I had a friend at a startup trying to close some of that gap by
         | reporting one-time rent payments to credit agencies, and the
         | sheer scale of benefits they were trying to bring their users
         | is hard to overstate.
         | 
         | I guess my point here is that there are in fact large portions
         | of the population that are not well served by credit scores
         | today, and just because you are not among them doesn't mean
         | they don't exist.
        
           | Gene_Parmesan wrote:
           | Okay, but search and browsing history is not a good way to
           | extend this data for these populations.
        
       | mensetmanusman wrote:
       | Start a company that searches for you:
       | 
       | "How to pay my bills on time"
       | 
       | "How to save more money for retirement"
        
       | skeletal88 wrote:
       | Where I am from in Europe, in Estonia, we havr a negative credit
       | score system and when you want to get a big loan then you have to
       | give the bsnk your account transactions from the last 6 months so
       | they can see what you are spending on. Casinos and such are
       | frowned upon. But nobody uses Credit cards. There are talks about
       | creating a positive credit registry also, but it is for the short
       | term lenders who should be able to see that you took out a loan
       | yesterday and then they should not give you one today
        
         | MaxBarraclough wrote:
         | Sounds easily gamed. Can't you just use cash at the casino?
         | 
         | I suppose I'm assuming rational actors though - downrating
         | people for having casino payments on their card might still
         | make statistical sense.
        
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