It was recently reported that MasterCard filed a patent for “a system, method, and computer-readable storage medium configured to analyze the physical size of payment accountholders based on payment transactions, and allowing a transportation provider to apply the physical size of payment accountholders to seating.”
They are suggesting that they can guess your size, and the size of all of your family members, based on what you buy, and then report that information to transportation companies. Their patent application states that this information might be used thusly: “for the comfort of their passengers, transportation providers should avoid seating physically large strangers next to each other”.
Riiiiiiight. Also, in lieu of drink service, airlines will start handing out bags of magic beans courtesy of MasterCard. I seriously doubt that Mastercard is going to the time and expense of patenting this so they can give it away, so if this goes into effect (and they may not act on it, even if the patent is approved) we can assume that travel companies will be paying them for it, and passing that cost on to us – and by us, I mean fat people.
Let’s get real here. Travel companies decided to start a business that moves people from place to place. Then, despite the fact that people come in many sizes, they built their planes, trains, and buses to only accommodate people up to a certain size. Now they try to charge people larger than that size up to twice as much for the exact same service (travel from place to place) in ways that are indefensible unless you think “we hate fat people” is a reasonable defense. And now Mastercard is saying “Hey, let us help you out with that.”
Again, this is a patent that MasterCard has applied for – they may not be granted the patent, and if they are they might not choose to use it. But I’m not excited about doing business with a credit card company that is excited about helping transportation companies engage in sizeism.
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