Privacy laws actually work! Let’s pass more of them.
> Information gathered about you after the effective date of our updated Privacy Statement, November 27, 2024, will be shared with participating stores where you shop, *unless you live in California, North Dakota, or Vermont.* For PayPal customers in California, North Dakota, or Vermont, we’ll only share your information with those merchants if you tell us to do so
In 1999 the show writers of the West Wing accurately predicated this in an episode about the selection of a Supreme Court Judge:
"It's not just about abortion, it's about the next 20 years. In the '20s and '30s it was the role of government. '50s and '60s it was civil rights. The next two decades are going to be privacy. I'm talking about the Internet. I'm talking about cell phones. I'm talking about health records and who's gay and who's not. And moreover, in a country born on the will to be free, what could be more fundamental than this?"
- Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) West Wing (ep: The Short List) 1999
- We've seen massive breaches of EMR systems
- We've seen massive breeahes from dating apps (Grindr) outing Gay individuals
- None of these entities faced significant consequences for their actions and continue to operate with large amounts of profit.
- 2 years after this episode the Patriot Act was passed. We've failed on privacy so far.
Reduce the power of the govt to regulate things at the federal level and instead move that power to the states. This will return power to the people, and people will naturally move to states that are delivering for them (whatever that is that they're looking for).
Across 50 states, this makes it 50 times harder (literally) to practice regulatory capture, and 50 times as likely that they'll be caught out by it, and because news travels at the speed of light today (unlike in the Constitutional era), 50 times as likely that the other state residents will find out about it.
Everything becomes fifty times better once we just return to the principles of federalism: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." (Tenth Amendment)
Decentralization still works. Push the power back downward to the people who care the most -- you and me. Even though it's one of the rare examples of a federal governing agency that is mostly apolitical and actually functions semi-effectively, the FTC, for example, is a largely pointless, neutered entity that pales in comparison to state powers. For example, the state Attorneys General were able to effectively destroy Big Tobacco. The federal government didn't even come close.
People cannot move so easily. Some states have more influence than others. It also makes the decision of 'where' to move more complex.
Do I choose a state where my daughters have few rights or one where corporations control everything or where the pollution is so bad my kid's IQ will suffer?
This just doesn't work because MOST companies are multi-state. Hell, most are multi-national in the new globalized world. So you have to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
It seems like most of the problems with abortions are seeking one when you want one and don’t need one and also live in a state that outlaws them. In fact recently I read an article where the Drs refused a medically necessary abortion and even the judge said they were cleared given the situation.
when will people stop being controlling and learn there’s two sides to this?
Because there aren't actually two sides to this, because even an anti-abortion stance doesn't save lives in the long run.
Also, yeah duh Doctors are scared. That's called a "chilling effect", and it's 100% intentional by the legislature.
Most "pro-life" politicians are completely anti-abortion, including in extreme cases such as rape. They're also almost always anti-contraception, which is hypocritical but also obvious.
> Because there aren't actually two sides to this, because even an anti-abortion stance doesn't save lives in the long run.
No really there is just two sides, wanting to kill an unborn child and wanting to protect it.
> Also, yeah duh Doctors are scared. That's called a "chilling effect", and it's 100% intentional by the legislature.
You missed the point. Given the laws they were authorized to perform an abortion. They chose not to do it to make a point. If they were honoring their oath they’d do what’s necessary and be judged later as their oath requires.
> Most "pro-life" politicians are completely anti-abortion, including in extreme cases such as rape.
All are. How about we solve rape instead of using it as an excuse to kill unborn children?
> They're also almost always anti-contraception, which is hypocritical but also obvious.
Citations needed. Some are sure, but you’re conflating an anti abortion stance with religion which is flawed.
> wanting to kill an unborn child and wanting to protect it
As I've already stated, a pro-life position doesn't actually save any lives in the long run. It actually costs them. The so-called "unborn children" will die no matter what. Abortions happen all around the world, including in undeveloped countries where they're extremely dangerous. Banning abortions just means the "unborn children" still die, but now also some women die who wouldn't have before.
As such there does not exist such "pro-life" position. Rather it is made up for moral leverage. The reality is such a position, if anything, costs more lives. The correct terms are anti-choice and pro-choice. The "life" or "protection" arguments are emotional and moral manipulation.
> You missed the point
No, YOU missed the point. If you don't understand what a chilling effect is than take a class on law and come back. Again, 100% intentional, 100% predictable. Should not be shocking, unless you aren't aware of those affects.
> solve rape
Grand idea, right after all the homeless people get homes and all the murderers become saints. Don't be stupid. We need real solutions, not whatever delusions you're talking about. I know you know that what you're suggesting is not possible - so why be dishonest and suggest it? I have very little patience for those who choose to play stupid.
Rape will exist so long as humanity will exist. The solution to solving rape is nuclear warfare. We both know this to be the case, so don't bullshit me.
> you’re conflating an anti abortion stance with religion which is flawed
Once again with the playing stupid. You do yourself no favors with such arguments.
I'm not "conflating" anything - I'm correlating them. Because they ARE correlated. I don't think a soul in America could possibly argue otherwise. But, surprise surprise, the brigade of "know nothing" type argumentative amateurs will pull up and pretend we live in an alternate reality where this is not the case.
Huh? Why can't you just regulate the flow of private funds to public servants and leave it at that? Not sure why you seem to be arguing that passing one bill expands the power of government as a whole.
The supreme court has said that partisan gerrymandering is a-okay, making it totally viable for states with 50-50 populations to end up with supermajorities in their state legislatures and house delegations.
The federal senate is not allocated according to the population and does not directly reflect the will of the majority.
Efforts to limit access to the franchise have been upheld by the courts and key protections from federal legislation like the voting rights act have been undone.
Even when the federal government does pass laws or regulations, the courts step in to strike them down through increasingly spurious reasoning.
I was at breakfast this morning and overheard a conversation at the table next to me.
This conversation was about how a recent thunderstorm had small hail accompanying the rain. And then that this small hail was the leftover seeds from "the jet planes spraying that stuff to control the weather."
Yes the American system is based on the admirable but false idea of the intelligent citizen.
It probably worked a lot better when all the voters were wealthy land owners.
I was at a coffee shop a couple weeks ago and I heard two guys going on about how the moon landing never could have happened because it seems impossible. They didn't have any supporting data. They just kept saying things like "all the footage looked so totally fake." My favorite was "and how did they even get back to Earth? I don't remember ever seeing video of then launching a rocket off the moon, do you?"
The astronauts drew straws, and Sandy Koufax had the bad fortune to draw the short straw. He would stay behind to roll tape while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were to return home. The two astronauts would remain suited for the ascent. Buzz Aldrin would monitor the instrument consoles while Neil Armstrong was to remain tethered to the open hatchway in what was later termed "a daring attempt" to recover the film canister thrown by Sandy Koufax. Unfortunately Neil Armstrong was unable to recover the canister. He described it whizzing past his gloved fingers merely inches away during the docking maneuvers with the command module. No one knows what became of the footage. To this day it is likely tumbling around the cold dark expanse of space, perhaps as a new lunar satellite.
... and that's why we don't have footage of the lunar ascent.
As for his heroic efforts, Sandy Koufax was posthumously inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame, and to this day continues to be known for the "shot that went around the moon".
I'm a boomer, the best thing is for my generation to die out. We are the most selfish and ignorant generation ever in modern times. And yet we had access to the most information! My kids don't like me to talk like this, my reply is always, "prove me wrong". (I'm referring to the mess we have caused the world, not necessarily the mankind helping accomplishments.)
Ah, well don’t be too rough on yourself. My parents are boomers, they are allright, I’m sure you are too.
I won’t say your generation didn’t make some mistakes politically. But in any group it is the kind and introspective that feel guilt about the group’s negative actions, while the selfish just go on happily being selfish. You don’t have to make up for the selfish folks who happen to have been born around the same time as you, but if you want to, live a long happy kind life.
There are so many beautiful quote I love from the West Wing... but this one stands out for me because of how (a decade off but) shockingly accurate it is.
This is so open faced and gross. It reminds of someone talking about getting paid minimum wage. If you get paid minimum wage, what your employer is saying is, "I would pay you less if I was legally allowed to do so."
It also reminds me of State Farm's (auto/home insurance in the US) website with this link at the bottom:
> Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information (CA residents only)
The “progress” is driving a wedge so deep in US society that many think there won’t be a country left after the progressives are done. They have all but destroyed any national identity and made us very easy to invade and continue to try to do so with gun control laws. you’re happy about progress, I’m terrified because the progressives don’t consider whether something they want is good or bad for the country, they just demand it regardless.
I would like a tax relating to privacy violations to be retroactive in all these other states. It’s actually legal to apply a retroactive tax, so why not?
If you produce less value than the cutoff (whatever that means; wages are set based on how little a company can get away with paying, not on some arbitrary "value" you've assigned to the work), companies that employ you still have to pay you a living wage. Or not even, since minimum wage usually lags a living wage.
The funny thing is, I bet you're also the kind of person who is against welfare programs. So if the minimum wage didn't exist, people in these sorts of jobs would get paid so little that they'd end up on welfare. Not sure how that would be an improvement.
the improvement here is in increasing skills, not paying someone more than the value they produce for the country, nor paying someone not producing any value.
welfare is great if your field is being phased out and you need retraining, or you’re disable or handicap but i loath people taking it when they simply don’t want to work and continue to have more kids that the state then pays for.
to help you understand this better let people move in with you and live off of your resources until you have none left for yourself. then don’t complain.
> If you produce less value than the [minimum wage], companies that employ you still have to pay you
True enough, I suppose, but … if one produces less than one costs, a company will not employ one. Why would a company employ someone who produces less than he costs?
Wages are more a factor of supply and demand and negotiation resulting from that than of value produced.
Otherwise we can have a long argument about if NFL players today truly produce 2-3x more "value" than 20-30 years ago for playing the same game.
(You might say "value" itself is coming from supply demand and that yes if more people have demand for NFL tickets or advertising spots during NFL games now then yes, the players are producing more value... but at that point when we acknowledge how interconnected and shape-able it all is, we could say that minimum wage is the government redirecting labor and businesses away from roles and behaviors that aren't even enough to cover the cost of living towards ones that are more valuable. Which would be... good?)
No it isn't, because wages aren't set based on some objective measurement of the quality of value produced. If that were the case, increases in productivity would have resulted in a commensurate increase in wages, but the only increase is the gap between wages and productivity.
you know what works better? delete your paypal account and dont use them as a service. I did this years ago and in fact have never missed not having one of these accounts. and since I'm not using paypal they're not sharing info on my to stores when i shop, whether my local laws allow it or not.
They refuse to delete the account I never intentionally created (their scammy credit card checkout tactics when I had no other option) unless I provide them a bunch of data I've never previously given them in order to 'verify' my identity.
They also raise the bar of entry for companies, reducing competition. I don't use PayPal and won't use Venmo in stores because of this, however I certainly wouldn't be putting trust in more legislation solving this.
I've gotten the sense that PayPal is circling the drain lately. Whenever I log on (which is rare) I'm bombarded by modals and banners offering payment plans, digital coupons, etc. When I receive money, there's lots of clever UI design that's trying to trick me into transferring it instantly (for a fee) or keeping it in PayPal, as opposed to withdrawing it to my bank account. I suppose this is just one more sign the company is in financial trouble.
I'll add one more to your list: since many things are paid in USD, and most of us live outside the US, your payment goes through a currency conversion. Up until a few years ago it was possible to configure PayPal to let your bank convert using bank's own rates, although it was hidden behind dark UI patterns. Then they removed it and now force you to run conversion at PayPal rates, which are just terrible, much worse than any bank I've ever used. This was about the time I stopped using PayPal completely, so I can't say exactly how much of a price hike this caused, but it's probably around 10%.
I have thought PayPal was circling the drain for so long that, honestly, it probably says more about me than PayPal. Still though, I don’t get it, as far as I can tell they are just… essentially doing the same thing as credit card companies, but with less regulatory protection for their customers.(?)
Like they made sense 20 years ago when banks didn’t know about the internet. But now they are befuddling.
Despite my bottomless hate for PayPal, I’ve been keeping my account active because there was always some worse option to give your credit card number to.
But with Privacy.com, I’m finally ready to let go.
Every time I bring this up, someone says "oh, they'll ruin your credit rating!"
No, actually they don't, unless you do something fraudulent. If you cancel your subscription legitimately and then kill the credit card, you've just made sure there aren't any "accidental" charges.
Most people want to use privacy.com so you don’t have to cancel the subscription because websites like to put up artificial barriers like having to call a phone number and wait on hold to cancel a subscription. So what happens in that situation where you technically never officially canceled the subscription and so the company continues to bill you and when the payments don’t succeed, they send it to collections?
In my experience, they say "your credit card is failing, please give us another one." Because credit cards fail all the time. It's not Red Alert.
You go to the page to change your credit card, and THEN you usually can find the "cancel my account" link. As long as you're not still using their service, you don't owe anything. They cancel you, and that's that. No collections agency.
If someone has an actual event, not a hypothetical, speak up.
Same here, I absolutely despise PayPal but end up using them often because I simply don't trust most retailers with my card information :(
(and it's often faster checkout if I don't have my CC details handy)
That being said, there's quite a bit of competition these days from BNPL vendors (klarna, afterpay etc.). I don't believe they are any more virtuous though...
It's not that I do not trust the shop to scam/fraud me (well, sometimes I do), but I do not trust their IT processes.
There are a surprising number of online shops that rolled their own payment processing (or at least seem to be). So it's more akin to entrusting a shop with a photo of both sides of your credit card and hoping that this photo does not get into the wrong hands.
Automatic data sharing policy to take effect on November 27, 2024. If you do not want PP to share your data with “participating stores”, you need to “opt out”.
Per e-mail sent regarding this policy update: “You can opt out of this at any time in your profile settings under "Data and Privacy."
Just logging in now, for the first time in years, I found two options that seem relevant.
For the first one: it presented that I had given permission to "paypal shopping" to share my identity. I removed that permission. This may be the automatically added permission that I had to opt out of. This was in a list of discrete permissions, or apparently so, since there was only one entry, but it could be removed by clicking on a trashcan icon.
For the second one, it was explicitly described with words like "share your info". This was a checkbox-slider, and it was already set to "off".
Also, maybe it defaults to off if you reside in USA and live in one of these states:
> Information gathered about you after the effective date of our updated Privacy Statement, November 27, 2024, will be shared with participating stores where you shop, unless you live in California, North Dakota, or Vermont
I didn’t revoke the “PayPal shopping” permission. But now I will.
Wonder if PP system automatically moves that slider to off if you revoke the “PayPal Shopping” permission. I honestly don’t remember granting that explicitly. Then again, I have only used PP for rare occasions
One thing I realized. This appears to be a change in their privacy policy for _US_ PayPal. If you are not in USA (ie, Canada), then it likely won’t be there as it’s not rolling out to you.
For me: I opened the app, navigated to Profile > “Data and privacy” > “Personalized shopping” (under “Manage shared info” header) > toggle off “Let us share products, offers, and rewards you might like with participating stores”
> No matter where you live, you’ll always be able to exercise your right to opt out of this data sharing by updating your preference settings in your account under “Data and Privacy.”
There is currently no opt out button or switch on this page on their website when signed in through either my personal or business account.
No idea how they got this screen, as when I click back it gives me the same menu I saw before where this option doesn’t exist and the website design is different.
I managed to get there through the main privacy settings screen, but I'm a California resident, so PayPal is legally required to give me that option. Perhaps you live somewhere else? But maybe PayPal hasn't removed access to the setting, just the link to it?
I have tried to delete my PayPal account on ten different occasions (I mean, something like that), and never succeed to do so. A maze of dark patterns and crappy UI and buttons that go nowhere. I even sent a couple of emails one of the times, and then gave up when there was no response. They're a heinous company.
I battled this. Turns out the key was to get the CFPB involved. Within a few weeks I received a letter of explanation from their legal department and my account was deleted.
Companies hate getting a letter from regulatory agencies because it frequently has to be dealt with in part by legal, which is an expensive department to clog.
Edit: I see you are in Europe. So the above doesn’t directly apply, although there may be a regulatory agency that is equivalent that you can gripe to.
That’s what I tried, but there was an issue with another account, not under my name, sharing my email for some reason. I got stuck in a loop of customer service reps escalating, saying no, having to reopen, and generally not solving the issue.
After about a year of receiving someone else’s account emails, and trying to get it corrected, I realized that I didn’t want them anywhere near my money and escalated to the regulators.
When I tried to close my account they refused since there was still an account (not mine) associated with my email.
Thanks for letting me know about the close account button. I already knew there was a happy path, I was pointing out that PayPal doesn’t have a good customer facing process for issues that can’t be solved normally.
You must first provide photo ID, name, address, phone number - all sorts of data not presently on the account - in order to verify identity to delete the account.
And then of course they'll retain it all under the guise of financial regulation (legitimately) and probably sell it (scummily).
I'm in Europe! I haven't tried in ages, a few years I suppose. I'm going to try again, bolstered by your comment. Thank you, kind netizen. Maybe they've been obliged to stop messing around as much with some of the new laws of the past years.
I see you're in Europe; don't you have a regulatory body you can contact to help you deal with this? I assume account deletion is a requirement covered by the GDPR.
Threatening that (or just using keywords like GDPR) works great for most companies when you can't find it on the website or mailing list has no unsubscribe link or whatever, but you're forgetting quite how much of a scummy company PayPal is.
This must be related to their new product - Fastlane.
Fastlane is an express checkout product, similar to ShopPay. Even if you have never used a website, you authenticate with OTP and all your information (Address & Payment Methods) is available.
Originally, merchants could not use this data to make customer accounts. This was not ideal for us merchants as there was no method to login to track your order information.
PayPal came to me this week saying they were updating their legal agreement to allow merchants to create customer accounts.
(Express checkout options will soon be everywhere - Stripe, Shopify, PayPal, Zelle/Paze are all competing in this space now)
> This was not ideal for us merchants as there was no method to login to track your order information.
You don't need accounts for that. Allow customers to check their order status using the order number and some other identifying bit that you are allowed to get/keep, such as last name or billing zip code. Merchants have been doing this since the very start of e-commerce. (If you can't keep anything, then just make the order numbers long random strings, and use that alone, and/or generate a random, unique URL to send in the order confirmation email.)
If a merchant creates an account for me without my consent, I delete that account and never buy from them again.
Stop abusing your customers' personal information. I'm glad I live in California, and have already opted out to PayPal sharing my information for this, as is my legal right.
Oh my goodness this drives me insane. Ebay sucks for this. Just tell me the info! I shouldn't need to log in.
I do my best to avoid merchants who use shippit because of this. At least shippit tells me the actual carrier and the carrier tracking number so I can do what I need to do. Even if the third party shippit tracking is up to date I still don't want to use shippit's tracking page anyway.
I had to reach out to (deeply patronising!) customer service for Sendle because they don't show any carrier information at all on their tracking page. None. I'm in Australia, and they are an Australian company so it's not like they're unfamiliar with the way things work here. Sendle tracking page never has any tracking information, and if I'm lucky I'll get a 'your parcel has been picked up from the sender!' email a week after the thing has been delivered. It's so frustrating! It's so needless; sendle already got their slice of the financial pie, and as far as I can see, their value proposition isn't going to be negatively impacted by simply choosing not to obfuscate the carrier info, so just give me the information! I think it would make the value prop better; if I am not going to be home when a parcel delivery is scheduled (which again has never been visible on anything I've received via sendle), being able to contact and coordinate with the carrier prior to a failed delivery can be necessary. If I knew what day parcels were coming and by which carrier so I can make sure I'm home at the time they typically show up. Also maybe don't be rude when customers ask for basic information that should already be provided by default! You're supposed to be a shipping company! Useless.
I just don't understand the motives of making tracking hard or impossible (thanks, sendle). Ebay making you log in means you might just buy more stuff while you're here, but for third party shipping companies whose customers are businesses trying to ship things I don't understand the value of (developing, hosting, integrating with carrier tracking, etc.) their tracking pages at all, obfuscating the carrier info or not. Is it just because the shippit tracking page looks nicer than most carrier tracking? I'm probs missing something obvious? If anyone has any insight, I would genuinely love to understand.
Ha, I forgot about that. The US Freedom is really shiny over at Paypal, a bank free to not follow banking regulations, and no pesky liberal privacy, except in California.
Does anyone know of a browser plugin or similar that could summarize, in real-time as I browse, a given website’s privacy and data use policy. Seems like reading through lengthy and verbose privacy policies could be great application of LLMs.
PayPal has always been a disaster. There have been so many stories of people having their accounts frozen for long periods of time while whatever passes for "customer service" at PayPal jerked them around or outright ignored them that I stopped using PayPal a very long time ago and I've never once regretted it.
I see that paypalsucks.com is gone now. Not sure when that happened (archive.org is down too), but really, people have had more than enough warning about what a shit company PayPal is, so anyone continuing to get screwed over by them now is pretty much asking for it.
That's not an "if". They're doing it. I'd suggest you start the deletion process now; I hear it's tricky if you live in a place without decent privacy laws.
Joke's on PayPal. I got an email that said "you can't do business with PayPal anymore" for no reason, so I guess they've got jack and shit to share from me?
Does anyone know if Venmo has a similar policy? Lately I’ve been trying to use apple pay/cash as much as I can for peer to peer payments but Venmo is still quite popular.
These asshats also have the world's worst OTP page that does not auto submit when you type out the 6 numbers and still doesn't submit on pressing Enter.
Everytime I have to move my mouse to the Submit button, I think about how their UX to nickel and dime microfees from you is super slick.
Their OTP/MFA is still not configurable, as far as I can see. When trying to figure out how to disable passwordless/OTP only log in, I saw someone trying to do the same describing how without the ability to disable OTP login, their kid logs in to their paypal by using the OTP text and they shouldn't have to delete their paypal or work around it with phone settings to have some basic security on their paypal account. It's such poor security because of spoofing attacks anyway, but anyone who knows your email and can see your phone can log in to your paypal by default. I also hate their stupid 'try another way -> sign in with password' flow on their log in. It's my password, not 'trying another way'. Ah, their UX is so bad.
Strongly recommend not using privacy.com. It's full of dark patterns and has lots of crazy behaviors like randomly locking your account and demanding good old picture of you with photo ID. For a privacy focused service, this is hilarious.
This has not been my experience using it for years. You should expect KYC (know your customer) processes and requirements for any financial service provider with a US nexus or interconnection to US financial infrastructure.
If you’re attempting to be completely anonymous with regards to value transfer, crypto and cash are your only potential options. The privacy, in this use case, is from other parties between you and the merchant (and including the merchant, if you’re not providing PI).
S/he probably meant payment information as credit card number, cvv etc. And there was no way before this for merchant X to know what Alice or Bob bought from merchant Y.
PayPal already shares enough contact info for the purpose of shipping when I order physical goods.
This new sharing appears to consist of marketing data on items you shop for, not necessarily PII, unless you consider your inseam to be classified top secret.
What PayPal lists in the Privacy Policy for the US is only an example. I interpreted the change as “PayPal collects any number of information on you. Gives you seemingly innocuous data such as inseam. But in reality, we may collect political affiliation, contacts, salary information, and share that with retailers that want our data”
All of that fancy crypto goes through a few regulated CEX entry points to become USD because people and businesses pay for expenses (notably, taxes) in USD.
You can exchange your existing crypto for another crypto in numerous ways and there use to be localbitcoins.com where you could buy crypto with cash and vice versa p2p in person.
They probably couldn't figure out the legal part behind p2p in person crypto exchange but I didn't follow the crypto scene for the last few years so idk if there are any alternatives to localbitcoins.com
The most safe and private way would be to mine crypto coins and then spend them or exchange them for other crypto or digital currencies. Even Satoshi was pro exchange[0].
Privacy laws actually work! Let’s pass more of them.
> Information gathered about you after the effective date of our updated Privacy Statement, November 27, 2024, will be shared with participating stores where you shop, *unless you live in California, North Dakota, or Vermont.* For PayPal customers in California, North Dakota, or Vermont, we’ll only share your information with those merchants if you tell us to do so
In 1999 the show writers of the West Wing accurately predicated this in an episode about the selection of a Supreme Court Judge:
"It's not just about abortion, it's about the next 20 years. In the '20s and '30s it was the role of government. '50s and '60s it was civil rights. The next two decades are going to be privacy. I'm talking about the Internet. I'm talking about cell phones. I'm talking about health records and who's gay and who's not. And moreover, in a country born on the will to be free, what could be more fundamental than this?"
- Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) West Wing (ep: The Short List) 1999
- We've seen massive breaches of EMR systems
- We've seen massive breeahes from dating apps (Grindr) outing Gay individuals
- None of these entities faced significant consequences for their actions and continue to operate with large amounts of profit.
- 2 years after this episode the Patriot Act was passed. We've failed on privacy so far.
The government has failed the constituents.
Regulatory capture is still the highest ROI investment, and we should work on that.
It's a perverse feedback loop. The more power the .gov has to regulate the better the ROI of regulatory capture.'
I'm not sure how we get out of this situation without it getting way worse.
Reduce the power of the govt to regulate things at the federal level and instead move that power to the states. This will return power to the people, and people will naturally move to states that are delivering for them (whatever that is that they're looking for).
Across 50 states, this makes it 50 times harder (literally) to practice regulatory capture, and 50 times as likely that they'll be caught out by it, and because news travels at the speed of light today (unlike in the Constitutional era), 50 times as likely that the other state residents will find out about it.
Everything becomes fifty times better once we just return to the principles of federalism: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." (Tenth Amendment)
Decentralization still works. Push the power back downward to the people who care the most -- you and me. Even though it's one of the rare examples of a federal governing agency that is mostly apolitical and actually functions semi-effectively, the FTC, for example, is a largely pointless, neutered entity that pales in comparison to state powers. For example, the state Attorneys General were able to effectively destroy Big Tobacco. The federal government didn't even come close.
People cannot move so easily. Some states have more influence than others. It also makes the decision of 'where' to move more complex.
Do I choose a state where my daughters have few rights or one where corporations control everything or where the pollution is so bad my kid's IQ will suffer?
Also, the one without school shootings please.
States have open borders, so I'm afraid that can't be solved by local measure alone
This just doesn't work because MOST companies are multi-state. Hell, most are multi-national in the new globalized world. So you have to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
Sounds like a free market approach, we know how that usually goes, and we already see how bad it is for women and abortions.
It seems like most of the problems with abortions are seeking one when you want one and don’t need one and also live in a state that outlaws them. In fact recently I read an article where the Drs refused a medically necessary abortion and even the judge said they were cleared given the situation.
when will people stop being controlling and learn there’s two sides to this?
Because there aren't actually two sides to this, because even an anti-abortion stance doesn't save lives in the long run.
Also, yeah duh Doctors are scared. That's called a "chilling effect", and it's 100% intentional by the legislature.
Most "pro-life" politicians are completely anti-abortion, including in extreme cases such as rape. They're also almost always anti-contraception, which is hypocritical but also obvious.
> Because there aren't actually two sides to this, because even an anti-abortion stance doesn't save lives in the long run.
No really there is just two sides, wanting to kill an unborn child and wanting to protect it.
> Also, yeah duh Doctors are scared. That's called a "chilling effect", and it's 100% intentional by the legislature.
You missed the point. Given the laws they were authorized to perform an abortion. They chose not to do it to make a point. If they were honoring their oath they’d do what’s necessary and be judged later as their oath requires.
> Most "pro-life" politicians are completely anti-abortion, including in extreme cases such as rape.
All are. How about we solve rape instead of using it as an excuse to kill unborn children?
> They're also almost always anti-contraception, which is hypocritical but also obvious.
Citations needed. Some are sure, but you’re conflating an anti abortion stance with religion which is flawed.
> wanting to kill an unborn child and wanting to protect it
As I've already stated, a pro-life position doesn't actually save any lives in the long run. It actually costs them. The so-called "unborn children" will die no matter what. Abortions happen all around the world, including in undeveloped countries where they're extremely dangerous. Banning abortions just means the "unborn children" still die, but now also some women die who wouldn't have before.
As such there does not exist such "pro-life" position. Rather it is made up for moral leverage. The reality is such a position, if anything, costs more lives. The correct terms are anti-choice and pro-choice. The "life" or "protection" arguments are emotional and moral manipulation.
> You missed the point
No, YOU missed the point. If you don't understand what a chilling effect is than take a class on law and come back. Again, 100% intentional, 100% predictable. Should not be shocking, unless you aren't aware of those affects.
> solve rape
Grand idea, right after all the homeless people get homes and all the murderers become saints. Don't be stupid. We need real solutions, not whatever delusions you're talking about. I know you know that what you're suggesting is not possible - so why be dishonest and suggest it? I have very little patience for those who choose to play stupid.
Rape will exist so long as humanity will exist. The solution to solving rape is nuclear warfare. We both know this to be the case, so don't bullshit me.
> you’re conflating an anti abortion stance with religion which is flawed
Once again with the playing stupid. You do yourself no favors with such arguments.
I'm not "conflating" anything - I'm correlating them. Because they ARE correlated. I don't think a soul in America could possibly argue otherwise. But, surprise surprise, the brigade of "know nothing" type argumentative amateurs will pull up and pretend we live in an alternate reality where this is not the case.
Yeah and only 1 or 2 states will get around to doing anything about that 5-10 years down the road.
Huh? Why can't you just regulate the flow of private funds to public servants and leave it at that? Not sure why you seem to be arguing that passing one bill expands the power of government as a whole.
Someone should come up with a form of government where we just, like, ask the people what they want the government to do and then it does that.
Supreme Court said money is speech and corporations are persons. We'll need to unwind some of the crazy first.
The supreme court has said that partisan gerrymandering is a-okay, making it totally viable for states with 50-50 populations to end up with supermajorities in their state legislatures and house delegations.
The federal senate is not allocated according to the population and does not directly reflect the will of the majority.
Efforts to limit access to the franchise have been upheld by the courts and key protections from federal legislation like the voting rights act have been undone.
Even when the federal government does pass laws or regulations, the courts step in to strike them down through increasingly spurious reasoning.
I was at breakfast this morning and overheard a conversation at the table next to me.
This conversation was about how a recent thunderstorm had small hail accompanying the rain. And then that this small hail was the leftover seeds from "the jet planes spraying that stuff to control the weather."
Direct voting on issues terrifies me.
Yes the American system is based on the admirable but false idea of the intelligent citizen. It probably worked a lot better when all the voters were wealthy land owners.
Worked better for who?
I was at a coffee shop a couple weeks ago and I heard two guys going on about how the moon landing never could have happened because it seems impossible. They didn't have any supporting data. They just kept saying things like "all the footage looked so totally fake." My favorite was "and how did they even get back to Earth? I don't remember ever seeing video of then launching a rocket off the moon, do you?"
SMH
The astronauts drew straws, and Sandy Koufax had the bad fortune to draw the short straw. He would stay behind to roll tape while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were to return home. The two astronauts would remain suited for the ascent. Buzz Aldrin would monitor the instrument consoles while Neil Armstrong was to remain tethered to the open hatchway in what was later termed "a daring attempt" to recover the film canister thrown by Sandy Koufax. Unfortunately Neil Armstrong was unable to recover the canister. He described it whizzing past his gloved fingers merely inches away during the docking maneuvers with the command module. No one knows what became of the footage. To this day it is likely tumbling around the cold dark expanse of space, perhaps as a new lunar satellite.
... and that's why we don't have footage of the lunar ascent.
As for his heroic efforts, Sandy Koufax was posthumously inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame, and to this day continues to be known for the "shot that went around the moon".
Eh, I guess, although I’ve also heard some pretty wild things by elected officials. What can we do?
I'm a boomer, the best thing is for my generation to die out. We are the most selfish and ignorant generation ever in modern times. And yet we had access to the most information! My kids don't like me to talk like this, my reply is always, "prove me wrong". (I'm referring to the mess we have caused the world, not necessarily the mankind helping accomplishments.)
Isn't what we're seeing with boomers just the natural progression? Heroes die before they become villains or whatever that saying is.
Millennials are already getting roasted for being kind of shitty, and they also wanted to change the world. That sort of thing?
(And yes leaving gen. X out was intentional - the ones that I know tend to complain about being a forgotten generation, so I thought it was funny)
Ah, well don’t be too rough on yourself. My parents are boomers, they are allright, I’m sure you are too.
I won’t say your generation didn’t make some mistakes politically. But in any group it is the kind and introspective that feel guilt about the group’s negative actions, while the selfish just go on happily being selfish. You don’t have to make up for the selfish folks who happen to have been born around the same time as you, but if you want to, live a long happy kind life.
There are so many beautiful quote I love from the West Wing... but this one stands out for me because of how (a decade off but) shockingly accurate it is.
Imagine if the real government was as competent and good faith as the West Wing government
Right! The West Wing was political porn, and I loved it (and still re-watch it occasionally)
This is so open faced and gross. It reminds of someone talking about getting paid minimum wage. If you get paid minimum wage, what your employer is saying is, "I would pay you less if I was legally allowed to do so."
It also reminds me of State Farm's (auto/home insurance in the US) website with this link at the bottom:
> Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information (CA residents only)
> If you get paid minimum wage, what your employer is saying is, "I would pay you less if I was legally allowed to do so."
Doesn't this apply to all pay rates? It's not like high-paying jobs are high-paying for the love in the employer's heart.
When does a wage stop being gross? 1c over minimum wage? $1 over?
Don’t get mad, get active. Keep cranking on the policy ratchet, progress and success is clearly possible.
The “progress” is driving a wedge so deep in US society that many think there won’t be a country left after the progressives are done. They have all but destroyed any national identity and made us very easy to invade and continue to try to do so with gun control laws. you’re happy about progress, I’m terrified because the progressives don’t consider whether something they want is good or bad for the country, they just demand it regardless.
My comment speaks specifically to consumer/citizen data privacy, which shouldn’t be a partisan or contentious issue (imho).
then reword it.
That's what Disqus has at the bottom of every of their comments section[0]. I find it ridiculous.
[0] https://electricdusk.com/img/disqus-gdpr-violation-marketing...
I would like a tax relating to privacy violations to be retroactive in all these other states. It’s actually legal to apply a retroactive tax, so why not?
> If you get paid minimum wage, what your employer is saying is, "I would pay you less if I was legally allowed to do so."
The minimum wage is the government saying "if you produce less value than this arbitrary cut off, you aren't allowed to work".
Ah, lovely, you're one of those people.
If you produce less value than the cutoff (whatever that means; wages are set based on how little a company can get away with paying, not on some arbitrary "value" you've assigned to the work), companies that employ you still have to pay you a living wage. Or not even, since minimum wage usually lags a living wage.
The funny thing is, I bet you're also the kind of person who is against welfare programs. So if the minimum wage didn't exist, people in these sorts of jobs would get paid so little that they'd end up on welfare. Not sure how that would be an improvement.
the improvement here is in increasing skills, not paying someone more than the value they produce for the country, nor paying someone not producing any value.
welfare is great if your field is being phased out and you need retraining, or you’re disable or handicap but i loath people taking it when they simply don’t want to work and continue to have more kids that the state then pays for.
to help you understand this better let people move in with you and live off of your resources until you have none left for yourself. then don’t complain.
also insults aren’t allowed on HN
> If you produce less value than the [minimum wage], companies that employ you still have to pay you
True enough, I suppose, but … if one produces less than one costs, a company will not employ one. Why would a company employ someone who produces less than he costs?
Wages are more a factor of supply and demand and negotiation resulting from that than of value produced.
Otherwise we can have a long argument about if NFL players today truly produce 2-3x more "value" than 20-30 years ago for playing the same game.
(You might say "value" itself is coming from supply demand and that yes if more people have demand for NFL tickets or advertising spots during NFL games now then yes, the players are producing more value... but at that point when we acknowledge how interconnected and shape-able it all is, we could say that minimum wage is the government redirecting labor and businesses away from roles and behaviors that aren't even enough to cover the cost of living towards ones that are more valuable. Which would be... good?)
No it isn't, because wages aren't set based on some objective measurement of the quality of value produced. If that were the case, increases in productivity would have resulted in a commensurate increase in wages, but the only increase is the gap between wages and productivity.
So all of the AI engineers getting large bonuses it has nothing to do with the value?
What you’ve described here is the way it’s supposed to work. But after decades of “progress” in removing morality you see the wage gap problem now.
you know what works better? delete your paypal account and dont use them as a service. I did this years ago and in fact have never missed not having one of these accounts. and since I'm not using paypal they're not sharing info on my to stores when i shop, whether my local laws allow it or not.
They refuse to delete the account I never intentionally created (their scammy credit card checkout tactics when I had no other option) unless I provide them a bunch of data I've never previously given them in order to 'verify' my identity.
Do you live in one of the states with privacy protections? If so, threaten them or turn them into the AG for the state.
I live in Oregon but they opted me out by default, perhaps because I have an old CA address in my list of old delivery addresses?
They also raise the bar of entry for companies, reducing competition. I don't use PayPal and won't use Venmo in stores because of this, however I certainly wouldn't be putting trust in more legislation solving this.
Can you explain what bar has been raised unless you were planning to sell PII as part of your business model?
I've gotten the sense that PayPal is circling the drain lately. Whenever I log on (which is rare) I'm bombarded by modals and banners offering payment plans, digital coupons, etc. When I receive money, there's lots of clever UI design that's trying to trick me into transferring it instantly (for a fee) or keeping it in PayPal, as opposed to withdrawing it to my bank account. I suppose this is just one more sign the company is in financial trouble.
Lately? It's been that way for decades.
I'll add one more to your list: since many things are paid in USD, and most of us live outside the US, your payment goes through a currency conversion. Up until a few years ago it was possible to configure PayPal to let your bank convert using bank's own rates, although it was hidden behind dark UI patterns. Then they removed it and now force you to run conversion at PayPal rates, which are just terrible, much worse than any bank I've ever used. This was about the time I stopped using PayPal completely, so I can't say exactly how much of a price hike this caused, but it's probably around 10%.
I have thought PayPal was circling the drain for so long that, honestly, it probably says more about me than PayPal. Still though, I don’t get it, as far as I can tell they are just… essentially doing the same thing as credit card companies, but with less regulatory protection for their customers.(?)
Like they made sense 20 years ago when banks didn’t know about the internet. But now they are befuddling.
>Then they removed it and now force you to run conversion at PayPal rates, which are just terrible, much worse than any bank I've ever used.
When was this? As of a few months ago it was working fine for me, although it required a bit of finagling to get it to work on new cards I added.
I can still defer conversion to my bank.
Looking at their revenue charted tells a different story.
One in which they are thriving.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/382619/paypal-annual-rev...
PayPal ($29B) also does more revenue than Mastercard ($25B).
Revenue != Profit
Despite my bottomless hate for PayPal, I’ve been keeping my account active because there was always some worse option to give your credit card number to.
But with Privacy.com, I’m finally ready to let go.
Every time I bring this up, someone says "oh, they'll ruin your credit rating!"
No, actually they don't, unless you do something fraudulent. If you cancel your subscription legitimately and then kill the credit card, you've just made sure there aren't any "accidental" charges.
Most people want to use privacy.com so you don’t have to cancel the subscription because websites like to put up artificial barriers like having to call a phone number and wait on hold to cancel a subscription. So what happens in that situation where you technically never officially canceled the subscription and so the company continues to bill you and when the payments don’t succeed, they send it to collections?
Hypothetical.
In my experience, they say "your credit card is failing, please give us another one." Because credit cards fail all the time. It's not Red Alert.
You go to the page to change your credit card, and THEN you usually can find the "cancel my account" link. As long as you're not still using their service, you don't owe anything. They cancel you, and that's that. No collections agency.
If someone has an actual event, not a hypothetical, speak up.
I'm also all in on privacy.com. I hope they stick around because it's such an awesome service.
Same here, I absolutely despise PayPal but end up using them often because I simply don't trust most retailers with my card information :(
(and it's often faster checkout if I don't have my CC details handy)
That being said, there's quite a bit of competition these days from BNPL vendors (klarna, afterpay etc.). I don't believe they are any more virtuous though...
Imagine shopping and not trusting the shop enough to pull out your wallet inside
It's not that I do not trust the shop to scam/fraud me (well, sometimes I do), but I do not trust their IT processes.
There are a surprising number of online shops that rolled their own payment processing (or at least seem to be). So it's more akin to entrusting a shop with a photo of both sides of your credit card and hoping that this photo does not get into the wrong hands.
Here's an example of this happening where drivers licenses were exposed via an open AWS S3 bucket: https://www.itnews.com.au/news/over-54000-scanned-nsw-driver...
Before chip cards were introduced in Europe (which was 20 years ago so most of my experience was as a child) this could happen.
My parents would avoid using a credit card in some restaurants and (less often) at remote petrol stations.
Automatic data sharing policy to take effect on November 27, 2024. If you do not want PP to share your data with “participating stores”, you need to “opt out”.
Per e-mail sent regarding this policy update: “You can opt out of this at any time in your profile settings under "Data and Privacy."
Here is the precise page, for anyone who wants to easily do it and amortize my settings perusing: https://www.paypal.com/myaccount/privacy/settings/recommenda...
Thank you, this worked fine for me in the US, "Sharing is off".
Don't see anything relevant in Australia...
thanks, the direct link works but I can't find it by browsing
Just logging in now, for the first time in years, I found two options that seem relevant.
For the first one: it presented that I had given permission to "paypal shopping" to share my identity. I removed that permission. This may be the automatically added permission that I had to opt out of. This was in a list of discrete permissions, or apparently so, since there was only one entry, but it could be removed by clicking on a trashcan icon.
For the second one, it was explicitly described with words like "share your info". This was a checkbox-slider, and it was already set to "off".
Also, maybe it defaults to off if you reside in USA and live in one of these states:
> Information gathered about you after the effective date of our updated Privacy Statement, November 27, 2024, will be shared with participating stores where you shop, unless you live in California, North Dakota, or Vermont
I'm in California and it was indeed off by default.
I didn’t revoke the “PayPal shopping” permission. But now I will.
Wonder if PP system automatically moves that slider to off if you revoke the “PayPal Shopping” permission. I honestly don’t remember granting that explicitly. Then again, I have only used PP for rare occasions
Any indication on _which_ setting under "Data and Privacy"?
One thing I realized. This appears to be a change in their privacy policy for _US_ PayPal. If you are not in USA (ie, Canada), then it likely won’t be there as it’s not rolling out to you.
For me: I opened the app, navigated to Profile > “Data and privacy” > “Personalized shopping” (under “Manage shared info” header) > toggle off “Let us share products, offers, and rewards you might like with participating stores”
Haven’t checked on paypal.com
It’d also ridiculous that I can only delete my data by closing my account.
option 2 - delete your paypal account, you dont need it.
> No matter where you live, you’ll always be able to exercise your right to opt out of this data sharing by updating your preference settings in your account under “Data and Privacy.”
There is currently no opt out button or switch on this page on their website when signed in through either my personal or business account.
Edit: Someone further down direct linked to it here https://www.paypal.com/myaccount/privacy/settings/recommenda...
No idea how they got this screen, as when I click back it gives me the same menu I saw before where this option doesn’t exist and the website design is different.
I managed to get there through the main privacy settings screen, but I'm a California resident, so PayPal is legally required to give me that option. Perhaps you live somewhere else? But maybe PayPal hasn't removed access to the setting, just the link to it?
I have tried to delete my PayPal account on ten different occasions (I mean, something like that), and never succeed to do so. A maze of dark patterns and crappy UI and buttons that go nowhere. I even sent a couple of emails one of the times, and then gave up when there was no response. They're a heinous company.
I battled this. Turns out the key was to get the CFPB involved. Within a few weeks I received a letter of explanation from their legal department and my account was deleted.
Companies hate getting a letter from regulatory agencies because it frequently has to be dealt with in part by legal, which is an expensive department to clog.
Edit: I see you are in Europe. So the above doesn’t directly apply, although there may be a regulatory agency that is equivalent that you can gripe to.
The option "Close Account" is halfway down the page under "Settings". So just a single press to find it after logging in.
(EU here.)
That’s what I tried, but there was an issue with another account, not under my name, sharing my email for some reason. I got stuck in a loop of customer service reps escalating, saying no, having to reopen, and generally not solving the issue.
After about a year of receiving someone else’s account emails, and trying to get it corrected, I realized that I didn’t want them anywhere near my money and escalated to the regulators.
When I tried to close my account they refused since there was still an account (not mine) associated with my email.
Thanks for letting me know about the close account button. I already knew there was a happy path, I was pointing out that PayPal doesn’t have a good customer facing process for issues that can’t be solved normally.
Been there, tried that.
You must first provide photo ID, name, address, phone number - all sorts of data not presently on the account - in order to verify identity to delete the account.
And then of course they'll retain it all under the guise of financial regulation (legitimately) and probably sell it (scummily).
Anecdotally, I deleted my PayPal account a few weeks ago and found it pretty easy. I’m in Europe, which may have made the difference.
I'm in Europe! I haven't tried in ages, a few years I suppose. I'm going to try again, bolstered by your comment. Thank you, kind netizen. Maybe they've been obliged to stop messing around as much with some of the new laws of the past years.
I see you're in Europe; don't you have a regulatory body you can contact to help you deal with this? I assume account deletion is a requirement covered by the GDPR.
The option "Close Account" is halfway down the page under "Settings". So just a single press to find it after logging in.
(EU here.)
Yeah good luck with that.
Threatening that (or just using keywords like GDPR) works great for most companies when you can't find it on the website or mailing list has no unsubscribe link or whatever, but you're forgetting quite how much of a scummy company PayPal is.
I work in Payments.
This must be related to their new product - Fastlane.
Fastlane is an express checkout product, similar to ShopPay. Even if you have never used a website, you authenticate with OTP and all your information (Address & Payment Methods) is available.
Originally, merchants could not use this data to make customer accounts. This was not ideal for us merchants as there was no method to login to track your order information.
PayPal came to me this week saying they were updating their legal agreement to allow merchants to create customer accounts.
(Express checkout options will soon be everywhere - Stripe, Shopify, PayPal, Zelle/Paze are all competing in this space now)
> This was not ideal for us merchants as there was no method to login to track your order information.
You don't need accounts for that. Allow customers to check their order status using the order number and some other identifying bit that you are allowed to get/keep, such as last name or billing zip code. Merchants have been doing this since the very start of e-commerce. (If you can't keep anything, then just make the order numbers long random strings, and use that alone, and/or generate a random, unique URL to send in the order confirmation email.)
If a merchant creates an account for me without my consent, I delete that account and never buy from them again.
Stop abusing your customers' personal information. I'm glad I live in California, and have already opted out to PayPal sharing my information for this, as is my legal right.
Or email them the actual tracking number.
I don't need to go to your website to read the same information as usps.com but in a different header.
Oh my goodness this drives me insane. Ebay sucks for this. Just tell me the info! I shouldn't need to log in.
I do my best to avoid merchants who use shippit because of this. At least shippit tells me the actual carrier and the carrier tracking number so I can do what I need to do. Even if the third party shippit tracking is up to date I still don't want to use shippit's tracking page anyway.
I had to reach out to (deeply patronising!) customer service for Sendle because they don't show any carrier information at all on their tracking page. None. I'm in Australia, and they are an Australian company so it's not like they're unfamiliar with the way things work here. Sendle tracking page never has any tracking information, and if I'm lucky I'll get a 'your parcel has been picked up from the sender!' email a week after the thing has been delivered. It's so frustrating! It's so needless; sendle already got their slice of the financial pie, and as far as I can see, their value proposition isn't going to be negatively impacted by simply choosing not to obfuscate the carrier info, so just give me the information! I think it would make the value prop better; if I am not going to be home when a parcel delivery is scheduled (which again has never been visible on anything I've received via sendle), being able to contact and coordinate with the carrier prior to a failed delivery can be necessary. If I knew what day parcels were coming and by which carrier so I can make sure I'm home at the time they typically show up. Also maybe don't be rude when customers ask for basic information that should already be provided by default! You're supposed to be a shipping company! Useless.
I just don't understand the motives of making tracking hard or impossible (thanks, sendle). Ebay making you log in means you might just buy more stuff while you're here, but for third party shipping companies whose customers are businesses trying to ship things I don't understand the value of (developing, hosting, integrating with carrier tracking, etc.) their tracking pages at all, obfuscating the carrier info or not. Is it just because the shippit tracking page looks nicer than most carrier tracking? I'm probs missing something obvious? If anyone has any insight, I would genuinely love to understand.
We do allow customers to check order status based on order id. I was just using an example.
The only information paypal is sharing is name and shipping address. We’re aren’t talking significant data here.
How is that different from Apple Pay or Google Pay, where you click one button and provide all your card details to a new merchant?
It’s not different. It’s a direct competitor.
These new wallets are all to compete with Apple and Google Pay.
Is it only in the US? My PayPal account is from Switzerland. I haven't received an email and the option doesn't appear in "Data and Privacy" either.
yes - appears to be only US, for now.
edit: updated title to add (USA)
US PayPal is not a bank. Other incarnations are and will be subject to the relevant banking regulations.
Ha, I forgot about that. The US Freedom is really shiny over at Paypal, a bank free to not follow banking regulations, and no pesky liberal privacy, except in California.
Does anyone know of a browser plugin or similar that could summarize, in real-time as I browse, a given website’s privacy and data use policy. Seems like reading through lengthy and verbose privacy policies could be great application of LLMs.
PayPal has always been a disaster. There have been so many stories of people having their accounts frozen for long periods of time while whatever passes for "customer service" at PayPal jerked them around or outright ignored them that I stopped using PayPal a very long time ago and I've never once regretted it.
I see that paypalsucks.com is gone now. Not sure when that happened (archive.org is down too), but really, people have had more than enough warning about what a shit company PayPal is, so anyone continuing to get screwed over by them now is pretty much asking for it.
Will be axing my paypal account if this goes through
That's not an "if". They're doing it. I'd suggest you start the deletion process now; I hear it's tricky if you live in a place without decent privacy laws.
I've been trying for years in a place with GDPR.
Joke's on PayPal. I got an email that said "you can't do business with PayPal anymore" for no reason, so I guess they've got jack and shit to share from me?
Does anyone know if Venmo has a similar policy? Lately I’ve been trying to use apple pay/cash as much as I can for peer to peer payments but Venmo is still quite popular.
These asshats also have the world's worst OTP page that does not auto submit when you type out the 6 numbers and still doesn't submit on pressing Enter.
Everytime I have to move my mouse to the Submit button, I think about how their UX to nickel and dime microfees from you is super slick.
Yes, it's so frustrating.
Their OTP/MFA is still not configurable, as far as I can see. When trying to figure out how to disable passwordless/OTP only log in, I saw someone trying to do the same describing how without the ability to disable OTP login, their kid logs in to their paypal by using the OTP text and they shouldn't have to delete their paypal or work around it with phone settings to have some basic security on their paypal account. It's such poor security because of spoofing attacks anyway, but anyone who knows your email and can see your phone can log in to your paypal by default. I also hate their stupid 'try another way -> sign in with password' flow on their log in. It's my password, not 'trying another way'. Ah, their UX is so bad.
The whole reason why I use paypal for some purchases is to keep the vendor from knowing my PII.
Paypal Enshitification level = 11
Is privacy.com an option for you? Disposable virtual payment card numbers and whatnot.
Strongly recommend not using privacy.com. It's full of dark patterns and has lots of crazy behaviors like randomly locking your account and demanding good old picture of you with photo ID. For a privacy focused service, this is hilarious.
This has not been my experience using it for years. You should expect KYC (know your customer) processes and requirements for any financial service provider with a US nexus or interconnection to US financial infrastructure.
If you’re attempting to be completely anonymous with regards to value transfer, crypto and cash are your only potential options. The privacy, in this use case, is from other parties between you and the merchant (and including the merchant, if you’re not providing PI).
I couldn't even sign up and create a virtual card. The reason? "An error has occurred, please contact support or try again later".
Yeah I don't think so, you had one job privacy.com
Doesn't the vendor get your name and address when paying through PayPal?
S/he probably meant payment information as credit card number, cvv etc. And there was no way before this for merchant X to know what Alice or Bob bought from merchant Y.
And E-Mail and phone number afair.
PayPal already shares enough contact info for the purpose of shipping when I order physical goods.
This new sharing appears to consist of marketing data on items you shop for, not necessarily PII, unless you consider your inseam to be classified top secret.
What PayPal lists in the Privacy Policy for the US is only an example. I interpreted the change as “PayPal collects any number of information on you. Gives you seemingly innocuous data such as inseam. But in reality, we may collect political affiliation, contacts, salary information, and share that with retailers that want our data”
Are there payment companies that don't sell user's data?
Glad I deleted my account some time ago
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All of that fancy crypto goes through a few regulated CEX entry points to become USD because people and businesses pay for expenses (notably, taxes) in USD.
You can exchange your existing crypto for another crypto in numerous ways and there use to be localbitcoins.com where you could buy crypto with cash and vice versa p2p in person.
"Used to be" isn't really helpful.
They probably couldn't figure out the legal part behind p2p in person crypto exchange but I didn't follow the crypto scene for the last few years so idk if there are any alternatives to localbitcoins.com
The most safe and private way would be to mine crypto coins and then spend them or exchange them for other crypto or digital currencies. Even Satoshi was pro exchange[0].
[0] https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/95/
I think it's more the know your customer (KYC) laws that are shutting down the alternatives.
Those laws predate crypto, and so from the government's perspective the alternatives were operating illegally: https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-penalizes-p...
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/man-sentenced-illegal-mo...