this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2024

335 points (98.8% liked)

Privacy

32412 readers

394 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

335

PayPal opted in users to share their data. (www.404media.co)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

46 comments fedilink hide all child comments

all 48 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 67 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

Einloggen
Herunterscrollen und unten auf der Seite den Link „Datenschutz“ anklicken
dann bei Datenschutz festlegen den Link „Datenschutzeinstellungen“ anklicken
dann das Feld „Interessenbasierte Werbung“ anklicken
auf jeden der beiden Einträge klicken und den Schalter jeweils auf „aus“ schalten

. Translated from the above:

Log in
Scroll down and click on the “Privacy” link at the bottom of the page
then click on the "Privacy settings" link under Data & Privacy
then click on the “Interest-based advertising” (Personalized shopping) field
click on each of the two entries and set the switch to “off” in each case

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I don't see this option. Is it only in specific countries?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Did you follow the tutorial I posted? If so, the English-translated part may not have the right terminology. I followed the instructions on the linked website: https://www.404media.co/paypal-personalized-shopping-opt-out/. I suppose, this is appliccable worldwide.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (2 children)

My Data & Privacy section doesn't have anything that seems relevant:

screen shot of paypal data and privacy settings

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

It looks like you're missing the "Manage shared info" section and "Personalized Shopping" link, which yields the above toggle for me (CA, US)...

The question is, is it gone because your privacy laws make it impossible to even offer, or because your privacy laws don't require them to care about your opinion at all?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Normally we are a small enough market that it takes a while to be worth sorting out whether they comply with our laws.

One that comes to mind is that data can only be used for the purpose it's collected, so I suspect adding this and opting people in would probably not be allowed. Grey area though, as it's not clear to me (IANAL) whether updating TS & Cs and telling people would be enough to be considered getting user consent. I suspect not, though, I think it would need to be opt in so you've actively got user consent.

So, most likely it's because our privacy laws are a bit stronger than their threshold, but also possibly because a small country of 5 million people (where paypal isn't that common) isn't worth spending lawyers on to work out if they are allowed to.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Mine looks different, I'm in the US. I disabled the toggle under the Personalized Shopping. Under 'Permissions you've given' there was an entry for 'PayPal shopping' that I also disabled.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Might just be US for now until they sort out the legality of it in more privacy focused countries.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

What instructions? All I get is "this is for paid members only"

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm in the EU, and both the fields are off already.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Also EU. Both options were enabled.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Same. Not GDPR compliant, that's for sure.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Thanks

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I deleted when I heard they were levying an inactivity fee in Canada.

I don't live in Canada, but that was a shit move.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago

Ah yes, charging money for not using a service, makes perfect sense! /s

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago

From what that article says, this fee is only charged to a PayPal balance. I have no clue who's keeping a balance in a PayPal account, but it's not like they're going to charge someone's payment methods.

Not defending them, I just find it surprising that they have any customers this could even apply to.

[+] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (4 children)

How do you do online shopping then? Most websites offer Paypal as a payment method, among credit cards. Or do you pay with a credit card?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Not the same person, but I do a credit card. It's a lot easier to figure out a dispute with my card holder over PayPal. Plus I can cancel my credit card instantly instead of risking my personal information getting leaked as PayPal has done before. And if my PayPal got hacked they'd have access to more than just my credit card number.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Opposite in the EU. Most banks won't even give you an option for a dispute. Or it will be awfully convoluted.

PayPal? Best dispute system ever. Saved me from online purchase scams countless times.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Is it really that unusual to pay online with a debit/credit card? I would consider that the standard way and PayPal an option sometimes available.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

To me, it is. I don't have a credit card - I never got one offered by my bank (...which makes one think...). Back in the "early days" (early 2000s - mostly on Ebay) it was quite common to recieve the bank information of the seller after purchase. Then I had to wire the money to the sellers' account. There was no online banking. It could take up to a week to wire the money. After the seller recieved the payment, the ordered item got sent with postal service. When Paypal was introduced, it was a game changer: the seller recieved the money instantly, and could send the purchased item right away.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

PayPal didn't come to my country until after online banking was already established, so I probably get a different experience. Banks here also issue (Visa) debit cards for free with a standard no fee bank account, so pretty much everyone has one. Debit cards being like a credit card in terms of paying online, but it uses money in your account.

Our biggest ebay-like site has their own payment portal for instant payments, done to copy what eBay did with paypal except you can't use it outside of paying for things you bought on that site. But people are generally paying wuth a debit/credit card. And bank transfers are very common, but I wasn't buying stuff online in 2001 so I'm not sure what it was like then.

Even today, paying with paypal in my country is far more likely to be a credit/debit card payment than a bank account one.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If your bank doesn't offer virtual credit cards (or they're a pain to use) and you don't want to sign up with another service, then yeah - PayPal is safer to give than your credit card number.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

In my experience, sites aren't implementing their own credit card payments. Paypal and Stripe are common, and there are a couple of local payment portals as well.

If it's not one of those I probably wouldn't use it, but in general it would never be the case that you can't pay with a credit card, where as PayPal is probably an option 1/3 of the time.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

I haven't used PayPal in ages, I only use Privacy cards.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Spin up a card using a service like Privacy and use that. I make one-time use cards with it all the time.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I looked it up. Neat concept, but it is availiable within US only. There is nothing similar availiable at my country - at least, not that I know of.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Aww what a bummer. It’s been really handy and helps me avoid fraud easily with the one-time use cards. You can also make cards with limits set that cannot be exceeded.

If you’re comfortable sharing, where are you at? I can look around for a similar service.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I live in Germany.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I left like a decade ago when they asked me in a chat to verify my identity by answering a question asking what my first car purchase was. I've never given then my SSN or that kind of financial details, so the fact they had these questions and details about me terrified me at the time and I immediately requested to delete and close everything with them. Haven't used PayPal again since then.

[–] brettvitaz 11 points 2 months ago

What you experienced is a verification service provided by credit reporting agencies and has nothing to do with PayPal. I wouldn’t be concerned that PayPal has this information, because they don’t. There are probably better reasons to be concerned and to not use PayPal.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Not seeing anything about this in the settings for PayPal.ca account. Guess I'll keep checking to see if they sneak it in at a later date for us Canucks.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I went looking and didn't see anything in my account either. Now does that mean they aren't doing it in Canada? Or are they not giving us a choice to opt out?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

They opted me in. What a shock. I may never recover from the surprise.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Appreciate the news, I don't follow the million apps I'm forced to use closely so this is a great help to me. I guess I gotta use my venmo on patreon now.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Venmo is owned by Paypal.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I believe

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I hear a class action lawsuit coming!

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Lawsuit wins
Lawyers get paid millions
Customers affected get maybe $9, for lower than their data was sold for
PayPal walks away with it as the price of doing business, no one involved is jailed.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Which is why there should be legal mechanisms to place legal responsibility for decisions like this personally on those in leadership positions when they're being made, even if those people no longer hold those positions.

You bet your ass the chucklefucks who came up with this little stunt would've thought twice about it if they knew that there was a decent chance they'd go to prison for it.

Also gotta make this shit sting the shareholders too: make the company pay the victims not only the estimated value of their data but also a portion of all profits made while a policy like this is in effect. Since there's no easy way to tell how much money was made off their data, unless the company has the numbers, let's say half.

Suddenly the quarterly report's got a nice repayment shaped dent in its side and all the sudden the shareholders care about following the law and respecting the rights of customers.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Damn. I'm European citizen, I thought I'm save from out-out bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

Flush that turd.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

I got locked out my seldom-used PayPal account a few years ago. They decided to arbitrarily remove Google Voice as an SMS 2FA option (I want to say TOTP wasn’t supported when I signed up). I went to find out who to contact about authentication issues, but support, chicken-&-egg-style, requires authentication—even for auth issues—with no support@ email. I used the worst-case-scenario support option of Twitter but that support team banned me for messaging them about auth. Since I couldn’t get back into my account + the sheer incompetence of the support system, I never used & refused to use PayPal ever since. I am happy that my country prefers cash transactions & I can’t believe in the past I used a major bank credit card + major corp digital payment option for almost all purchases. Long live cash (& Monero/Zcash).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

How does one opt out?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Without reading, my guess is something convoluted like sending physical mail under a certain weight or sending an email within a certain date that has already passed. Imma go read it really quick and let you know how accurate I was.

Edit: Apparently you can just do it in the settings. But they will still do it "as necessary for transactions." Which means they'll probably still do it and just stretch what "necessary" means as far as they take it. Which is equally as shitty.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Check the newer comments, there may be a setting.