Take Ford CEO Jim Hackett, whose recent Freakonomics Radio appearance celebrated his company’s shift from a car business to a debt-issuance business, with Ford Credit now accounting for a third of the company’s profits. Hackett vowed to increase that share by using the leverage he could exert over his debtors to force them to let him spy on them (for example, by doubling down on GM’s car radio surveillance), and then cross-referencing this data on the data borrowers are forced to supply in order to buy their cars, and with data-sets from corporate acquisitions like the scooter company Spin.
Read the full article at Boing Boing.