“If you’re someone who’s buying products on the web, we know who is buying the products where, and we can leverage the data,” Grether said in a statement to the WSJ. He also said that PayPal will receive shopping data from customers using its credit card in stores.
A PayPal spokesperson tells the WSJ that the company will collect data from customers by default while also offering the ability to opt out.
PayPal is far from the only company to sell ads based on transaction information. In January, a study from Consumer Reports revealed that Facebook gets information about users from thousands of different companies, including retailers like Walmart and Amazon. JPMorgan Chase also announced that it’s creating an ad network based on customer spending data, while Visa is making similar moves. Of course, this doesn’t include the tracking shopping apps do to log your offline purchases, too.
It should be completely illegal for these companies to just completely fucking change the nature of our agreements decades later. This is bullshit.
It wouldn’t have to be illegal if we transitioned to a decentralized and anonymous payments system that doesn’t involve the likes of PayPal
So… Cash? Cryptocurrency pegged to the dollar?
Cash works, but not for online purchases. I pay for a VPN subscription anonymously with a cryptocurrency wallet app, it’s at least as convenient as using PayPal, and unlike PayPal I can be sure there isn’t a middleman collecting/selling my transaction data for ads or whatever else. This is a solution that works and exists right now. I know a lot of people really don’t like cryptocurrency, but I’d also be ok with some other system that satisfies the same requirements.
To solve the problem instead by regulating payment providers, to begin with you would have to convince governments that are largely in the pockets of these companies to act against them. You would have to get these people to craft a set of laws telling them, “hey, this information you’ve collected that is on the computers you own and control, don’t look at it ok? Also don’t do anything with it unless we say it’s ok.” and then, somehow, actually enforce that. It’s taking a system basically made to centrally collect and control information, and hoping that people with an obvious interest in using it for that purpose will play along with retrofitting it to prevent privacy violations. To me this seems like planning for failure when you can instead just use a system that doesn’t involve trusting a company with this info to begin with.
Wasn’t the EU working on some digital Euro? I know it wouldn’t help Americans at first but maybe create enough pressure for others to follow.
Been keeping my eye on these guys hoping they can turn the tide: Taler
I kind of wouldn’t want a government spying on me with this either, but it would be somewhat of an improvement over both the government and companies spying on me with it.
In the beginning PayPal was needed due to credit cards not working for international payments. Now not so much. They are giving you a reason to leave.
Microcenter shares purchases with Facebook. Even when you shop at the store.
What if you pay cash?
I assume most things advertised in apps and websites to be low quality or scammy. I hate advertising enough that I actually avoid any large company that throws ads in my face because I assume they can no longer rely on their reputations and arr no longer the value they were when they rose to prominence.
PayPal’s hegemony must end.
Hegemony? eBay and Play Store are the only places I’ve seen PayPal for the last decade
Paypal is everywhere. Many sites accept it, even government ones.
Luckily, they’re not the only ones in the game.
As of 2022, PayPal operates in 202 markets and has 426 million active, registered accounts.+700 000 corporates accept PayPal payment, top 1000 : 72%. 1.5 billions in transactions. They own iZettle, Honey, Braintree, venmo, curv, paidy, gopay, … I think hegemony was the right word.
Alternatives? Except for not using services that require PayPal.
I’m kinda surprised to hear they didn’t already do that… I guess I just assumed that was the entire point of them acquiring “honey” and had been doing it since at least that point.
More power to em. I stopped using them years ago.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The company’s new advertising business will encompass purchase information and customer spending habits from PayPal and its sister app Venmo, according to The Wall Street Journal.
A PayPal spokesperson tells the WSJ that the company will collect data from customers by default while also offering the ability to opt out.
When asked about the kinds of data PayPal will collect, spokesperson Taylor Watson told The Verge that the advertising platform is still in “early stages” and that the company doesn’t have “definitive answers” yet.
“Alongside the advertising business, PayPal will build transparent, easy-to-use privacy controls,” Watson says.
In January, a study from Consumer Reports revealed that Facebook gets information about users from thousands of different companies, including retailers like Walmart and Amazon.
JPMorgan Chase also announced that it’s creating an ad network based on customer spending data, while Visa is making similar moves.
The original article contains 325 words, the summary contains 143 words. Saved 56%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I’m so fucking tired…
Guess I’ll delete my PayPal account.
As far as data goes, purchase data is one I can live with businesses doing this kinda stuff with. I’m using their platform to complete the sale, so it’d make sense to me they’d have data of that sale. And it makes sense to me that a business would leverage that data in ways to benefit themselves.
Someone tell me if I should be concerned, but this seems like what everyone else has done as long as they’ve been able to do it.
Will? That’s an evil company, surely slightly evil targeted ads have been going on for awhile.
