PayPal To Share Customer Purchase Data with Retailers (msn.com) 56
PayPal will begin sharing detailed customer purchase data, including clothing sizes and shopping preferences, with retailers for targeted advertising starting November 27, the payments company announced in a recent privacy update. The initiative affects PayPal's 391 million active consumer accounts worldwide. While customers can opt out through the app's settings, the GAO reports such opt-out rates typically remain below 7% across financial services.
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^ This.
Dump Paypal now! (Score:2)
Why didn't they make this bullshit opt in?
Hmm?
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Nobody would want to opt in, unless there was something in return, perhaps some useful coupons or whatnot.
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They could totally do that, however. The current opt-out setting has something about "Special offers and discounts" you may be interested in. All they'd have to do to get people to opt in would be "Click here to see exciting X% off discount offers" fine-print: Opt in to data sharing. Show some offers not many people will buy or that are intrinsically profitable, get the opt-ins; lather, rinse, repeat, etc.
Re:Dump Paypal now! (Score:4, Insightful)
Why didn't they make this bullshit opt in?
Hmm?
Probably for the same reasons companies object to the various Click-toCancel [slashdot.org] rules -- $$$.
Re: Dump Paypal now! (Score:2)
Dumb (Score:3)
sharing detailed customer purchase data, including clothing sizes and shopping preferences, with retailers for targeted advertising
Ad:
Hey we noticed that you like green and wear a size medium. ...)
What a coincidence, we sell things in green *and* in medium!
(Unlike those other companies
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Sorry, that's not a targeted ad anymore. I enrolled in that UBI scheme and my arse got wider now, it refuses to get into mediums anymore. You will need data fusion + some gen AI to combine paypal data with UBI data and generate a "targeted" ad.
At what point is it useless? (Score:2, Interesting)
There's all this hand-wringing over the collection and sale of personal data, but I really have to wonder if there's any point to it. I couldn't tell you the last time advertising affected my decision to purchase (or not) any particular product or service. It doesn't matter how many ads Levi's throws on my browser when I already know I'll be picking up my next pair of jeans at Costco, nor Sony when I'm not even interested in a gaming console, nor anybody else. Google reads my email and knows I'm registere
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... how many ads Levi's throws on my browser ...
Don't you have an ad blocked?
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Of course I do, but as with all advertising, it's a never-ending game of whack-a-mole when it comes to black-holing their servers.
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I'm with you. I sign up and install the app to manage my air travel, and they take that as carte blanche to nag me with emails and text messages DAILY as if I have suddenly developed the travel habit, having NEVER used them before, and that they can count on my business though I did not book travel on their airline, the cruise line did. That is failed and pointless marketing, it only places them in the same bucket as all the rest of the annoying airlines that thought I would be their best friend after a tri
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There's all this hand-wringing over the collection and sale of personal data, but I really have to wonder if there's any point to it. I couldn't tell you the last time advertising affected my decision to purchase (or not) any particular product or service. It doesn't matter how many ads Levi's throws on my browser when I already know I'll be picking up my next pair of jeans at Costco, nor Sony when I'm not even interested in a gaming console, nor anybody else. Google reads my email and knows I'm registered for a coaching clinic? More power to them... good luck getting me to register for that second clinic six months from now halfway across the country, 'cause no matter how many times they shill it, my budget's not going to allow it. My purchasing either goes through a programmatic decision tree (i want a compact car with minimum t mpg and features r, s, and x... these are the models which satisfy, go test drive), or are literally "I have the munchies for chocolate crunchies, and Butterfinger has never failed me."
Wait until your health insurance costs twice as much next year because their AI decided that your spending habits correlate with people who have above average risk for various health issues, or you are no longer eligible for life insurance because there's too high a risk that your spending patterns mean they are too likely to have to pay out next year. Maybe the next time you're at the shop, Butterfingers cost twice as much for you because your purchasing pattern indicates that you will buy them anyway. I
Re: At what point is it useless? (Score:2)
The health insurance eligibility and prices are highly regulated, so that particular example isn't a good one.
There is however already all kinds of dynamic pricing happening online. For travel, for example I have seen big differences booking the same hotel room on different browsers, desktop vs mobile, mobile app vs browser, using VPN to initiate the booking from another city/state/country. And there is not really any pattern to it. It's different for each case.
You can spend less money if you are aware of
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If I stop getting ads for shirts in size Extra-Tent it will be an improvement.
There was some other ad that I found really annoying but I blocked it from my mind so well I can't remember what it was. There is also a yellow liberty mutual ad that can go away any time.
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I think it goes deeper than just simple advertisin (Score:2)
She hadn't actually bought anything related directly to being pregnant but from cross referencing they knew that people who buy those things that she bought were pregnant.
The point being that they can completely break down privacy based on purchases that are seemingly unrelated but are actually very very much related.
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The example I always see is that a pregnant teenage girl was buying stuff from Target and they sent a mailer congratulating her on the pregnancy to her house before she told her parents
It's worse when it's a pregnant teenage boy. Much worse if he ordered menstrual cups and tampons from Target previously.
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I couldn't tell you the last time advertising affected my decision to purchase (or not) any particular product or service.
That's what makes marketing so effective. Most people don't even know they are influenced. It may not sway you over one specific item for which you already have a fixed preference, but that doesn't mean you aren't being constantly influenced by advertising. Even if Levi's isn't getting your money they still may very well influence when you decide to take that trip to Costco.
Also don't take this the wrong way. It's human nature to think you're above human nature. The reality is that marketing is the major in
Why so late? (Score:3)
Why is paypal so late to join the enshittification club?
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Elon sold it. Its now outside of his grasp. Took them longer
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Why is paypal so late to join the enshittification club?
Late? They were a front runner. From the beginning they wanted to be a bank without playing by banking rules. Here's what Wikipedia has to say. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Thank you Paypal! (Score:1)
Re: what?! (Score:2)
What if their AI gave your tailor the model and dimensions of your adult diaper ? What then ?
Opt-Out (Score:5, Insightful)
...opt-out rates typically remain below 7%....
I wonder why that is.
From PayPal:
You can opt out of this at any time in your profile settings under "Data and Privacy".
Under data and privacy, there are some options:
1) Manage Cookies. Is is there? Nope.
2) Search Privacy. Is it there? Nope.
3) Blocked Contacts. Is it there? Nope.
4) Permissions You've Given. Seems promising. Is it there? Nope.
5) Personalized Shopping. It's the last resort, but sounds entirely unlikely. Is it there? I don't know, but when I click on it, it brings me to a screen with an option that says, "Let us share products, offers, and rewards you might like with participating stores," and it's active. It sounds like dark pattern bullshit, so that must be it. I turned it off.
Bullshit like that is why only 7% of people bother to opt-out. It's buried so deep in doublespeak marketing crap that it's hard to know what the option does. People are likely to look under permissions, see nothing relevant, and stop there. Who the fuck would imagine it's under Personalized Shopping!? Hell, I'm still not sure that I found the right option!
Re: Opt-Out (Score:2)
Personalized shopping is the one (Score:2)
Yup, that's it:
Personalized shopping
Let us share products, offers, and rewards you might like with participating stores
Starting early summer 2025, we’ll be building more personal experiences for you. You can opt in and out of sharing at any time by adjusting this setting.
How personalized shopping works
We’re on a mission to help you find the most relevant products and styles.
Top picks for you
We’ll share recommendations with participating stores based on your shopping history and preferences
Re: Opt-Out (Score:2)
The personalized shopping settings was already off. I don't remember opting out. I might have forgotten if I did. I also don't see any e-mail notice from PayPal about this either. I wonder if this is really something new. Or somehow the setting defaulted to off for my account.
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Thanks. Just turned it off.
Probably would have taken me ten minutes to find that.
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Hmm, mine doesn't even have a section under Data&Privacy for Personalized shopping. I'm in Canada, wonder what's up with that.
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Well, Biden's the 1st I've heard that has been making progress on this front... hopefully the next one finishes the job. (you should know which one will make it worse.)
Re: Even then (Score:2)
Even then it's probably just a checkbox that does nothing.
How would you ever even know?
And then, they always have the backup excuse: 'Oops, it was a programming error.'
Closing my account now (Score:2)
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Not saying it is right, but as long as they provide a method of opting out, I can live with it.
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You have to ask yourself why the feature is not opt-in. The answer is because almost no one would opt-in. Paypal has to force this on you. Why would you do business with someone that acts like that?
Re: Closing my account now (Score:2)
I don't care (Score:2)
I don't think the recommendation algorithms work that well. I suspect it is due to the flood of data they now have and more data isn't going to fix it.
The tracking superdollar (Score:2)
more forcing things on users (Score:2)
I quit LinkedIn a couple of years ago when they decided that browser fingerprints are as good as a password and removed the need to login from my account without my permission. After a couple of braindead responses from LinkedIn, I used a single bad word in an email. Paypal insta-banned me. Thank goodness, I'm no longer subject to their draconian approach to paying customers.
Fuck you Paypal, I'm going to celebrate the day you die in a fire because of your own bullshit.
Where exactly are they getting the data to share? (Score:3)
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I assume it's like credit cards companies knowing what you buy because they get the invoice and most invoices nowadays detail which items you bought.
They don't though (Score:2)
EU (Score:2)
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I guess noyb haven't gotten round to suing PayPal over it yet... :(
They wont get anyone sizes in Slashdot (Score:1)
I quit PayPal over 15 years go.... (Score:2)
Re: Just say no (Score:2)
PayPal is a scumbag business. You have only to read their privacy policy.
They are not in the least ashamed of their business practices.
Just say no to PayPal.
eBay (Score:2)
One more good reason not to use Paypal (Score:2)