Sharing is Caring
SHARE!!!
Including your (dirty) underwear.
PayPal-owned digital wallet Venmo shares way too much data via its public API, according to Berlin-based researcher Hang Do Thi Duc. If users accept the default setting on their account when they sign up, their transaction details are accessible via the service's API, making it “incredibly easy to see what people are buying, …
The words; "we take /insert particular case here/ very seriously" must now be some of the most devalued words in the language.
Every mouthpiece from governments down to the local infants school all wheel out the same weasel words after they have screwed up because they are too stupid/ don't give a shit/ don't care etc regarding the personal information in their care.
I notice more and more lately that many organisations are also trying to wriggle out of their responsibilities by describing their role as something not requiring responsibility or dumping the responsibility onto someone else.
Or a nice passive aggressive "If we caused any distress".
I'm becoming thoroughly sick of these statements getting no push back from reporters. What I'd give for spokesmorons / politicians / whatever to be confronted with questions like "Your actions show the complete oposite, how do you explain that?".
No surprise. PayPal discloses unnecessary details of your transactions to your bank (when wiring funds to cover for the purchase). It should only provide PP transaction ID (that could be referenced when logged in to PP portal) but this would be too much to ask. The end result is not only potential privacy breach, but also - if bank didn't like some of details of PP transaction - possibility of your bank just bouncing the transfer and PP chasing you for failure to pay. Fun times fixing the mess, trust me on this one.
"Please stay on the line, your call is important to us.... I promise not to cum in you... Of course I had a @#$@#$ test darling!".... Do corporations never get bored of saying this shit? Every ass in corporate PR, should have to attend 'Fight Club' every night of the week like its their first time!
The media is constantly baited into lapping up the PR of Cashless or sucking on the empty promises of Stripe / Venmo etc. Politicians especially need to be reminded to 'check' assumptions at the door.
Nothing I say will change anything. Soon Facebook-Google et al, will decide who you can and can't send payments to. And all of them will leak transaction history or allow it to be hacked by not securing it well enough!
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Sales Pitch:
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https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2018/0612/970015-moneyconf-dublin/
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Versus Reality:
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43645676
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-18/-no-cash-signs-everywhere-has-sweden-worried-it-s-gone-too-far
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-06-11/maybe-dollars-should-be-digital
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/why-cashless-society-is-a-dangerous-idea-1.2869212
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/07/18/venmo_spaffs_transactions_to_worlddog/
Not only privacy, but any vestige of freedom. What would you say if you were trying to book a trip to France from the UK and got a message back that read "The Monitors do not wish you to travel outside of the country at this time"?
“Our users trust us with their money and personal information"
Fools!
" we take this responsibility and applicable privacy laws very seriously. Like on other social networks, Venmo users can choose what they want to share on the Venmo public feed”
Translation: We take it as seriously as other social networks, i.e. not at all.