<< Users with good FICO scores might soon start seeing ads for more expensive luxury goods and services than those with lower scores, as Google (Google) has started to experiment with targeting ads based on users’ credit score.

According to Google’s senior industry marketing manager for financial services, Masha Korsunsky, this is one of the initiatives Google has been launching together with Compete, which has a database of about 2 million users who agreed to give info on their credit score when they applied for a new credit card. >>

http://mashable.com/2009/06/29/google-credit/

What I don't understand: how can Google use the information from Compete to actually identify the users?

> how can Google use the information from Compete to
> actually identify the users?

This article, linked from Mashable, contains more details: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=108789

If I understand it correctly, and I'm not sure, then Compete shared:

1. data on which kind of websites people (who opted in to share their credit score) typically visited, which Google could then in turn roughly match against their list of sites showing AdSense (the "Google Content Network"). So this would not target individuals know with full names or anything, but Google would know "N% of people with high credit score visit website segment XYZ"... (?)

2. data – provided by "Compete's sister company" (?) – on search behavior of people prior to those people applying for a credit card. Google may now match this search behavior pattern against patterns among their own users, to find out more about their users.

Anyone knows if this is correct?