The ultimate way to go about purchasing products through the web would be to use a burner phone and a burner credit card. That would ensure utmost privacy and security.
Though burner phones would be harder to come by and more difficult to make occasional use of, a new company is offering a way to generate a virtual burner card every time users need to enter a credit card number on the web.
Privacy is the name of the company, and it offers a way to keep a customer's real credit card number safe while getting just as much control over their purchases and subscriptions made on the Internet.
Privacy's features can be used either through a Chrome browser extension or via an app available for both iOS and Android devices. Privacy's credit card, in this case, isn't actually a card at all. Instead, it's a randomly generated credit card number made by Privacy that can only be used once. After that, the card number self-destructs.
To use the service, users need to sign up and create an account. From there, users will need to link their Privacy account to their bank account. So far, Privacy is compatible with all the big banks, namely: Bank of America, Citibank, Chase, and Wells Fargo along with a few others.
When Privacy users wrap up their online shopping and go to a cart to check-out their purchases, a tiny Privacy icon will appear next to the credit card form. When user's click the Privacy button, the service automatically generates a new virtual Visa debit card specifically for the website they're shopping on.
Privacy offers a few other options as well besides creating a one-time use credit card number. Users can create an unlimited number of single- or recurring-use cards. The service even allows for the use of merchant-specific cards, such as a card just for a Netflix subscription, or for Amazon shopping sprees.
The only real drawback to "paying with Privacy" is that users must actually give up a bit of their privacy by sharing the credit card information with the service.
