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Public by Default: Venmo Stories of 2017
- decasia 8y agoIt's hard to regulate the users' ignorance or to prevent the use of awful dark patterns like "public by default." But it would be a more ethical world if every site with public-facing social features had to create something like the presentation that publicbydefault.fyi has put together here. Something that graphically exposes the exact privacy implications of the data people are leaking. Privacy is at this point an educational problem as much as a technical problem, and it's on us to figure out the best practices for how to teach it.
- heinrichf 8y agoPreviously discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17549985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17549985
- mediumdeviation 8y agoAnd also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17858019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17858019
- CSEThrowaway 8y agoI have been complaining about this, basically since Venmo came out. My friends would just say "oh, you just make your account private" like it was no big deal, but I was still flabbergasted. Was it supposed to be some kind of social networking aspect? It just boggles my mind that people would participate in such a product. My primary experience with it was as an undergraduate, where student groups would use it to send money for things like membership fees, outfits, etc. Most of these people were downloading the app for the first time, and I doubt they bothered managing their privacy settings. The fact that this is now just getting attention kind of makes me want to hit my head on my desk. I'm glad it is though; this site is very well done and I hope Venmo and its users take note.
- briandear 8y agoThis is why I use Apple Pay, with Apple, I can safely assume privacy is protected. With many other companies, especially PayPal ones, privacy is an inconvenience to their business model.
- chickenfries 8y agoMy sibling and their friends use the Cash app, they find the social networking aspect of venmo appalling. I think when Venmo came out, there was nothing else as convenient, so we accepted the social networking aspect for the convenience. Man, what a brilliant feature though, for Venmo. Provide users with Emoji autocomplete, get perfectly labeled transactions. If I try to pay my roommate for electricity, it asks me to use a series of emojis that represent "electricity bill." In this way, Venmo is getting users to remove the ambiguity in describing their transactions. Something like "electricity" could refer to say, a night club, but Venmo got me to accurately label it as a power bill.
- CSEThrowaway 8y agoI use the Cash app as well. And I can't really tell if your second paragraph is a joke or not!
- chickenfries 8y agoI think it's brilliant the same way that an evil genius is brilliant. Still evil though. And yes, that is actually what Venmo does if you try to type in "electricity bill"
- rco8786 8y agoIn mine it just gives me one option that is a money emoji with a “dollar dollar bill” caption.
- chickenfries 8y agoMaybe they’ve updated it since I last used it, but I suspect that “dollar dollar bill” is still a subtle tag that indicates that the transaction was a “bill” payment. I just checked and I still get four emoji: lightning bolt, plug, lightbulb, money with wings (those probably aren’t their proper names, I’m just guessing) with the text “electricbill”
- s_dev 8y agoThis doesn't seem very GDPR compliant. Though I don't know -- it at least just doesn't seem that way, it could be. "By default privacy isn't baked in" something that GDPR does require. I understand GDPR only applies to EU citizens but I'd imagine theres a lot of EU citizens using this US only product in the US.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoGDPR applies to EU residents (“data subjects”). EU citizens in the US are not protected by GDPR. I don’t believe Venmo operates in the EU (as it’s a shim for US financial infrastructure).
- briandear 8y agoGDPR has nothing to do with this.
- s_dev 8y agoAny company that stores or processes identifiable info like photos, names or even ip address on EU citizens is within the scope of GDPR. If I withdraw my consent for example from Venmo to hold my name. Is that public record altered?
- freeone3000 8y agoThis does not service EU citizens.
- AndreasHae 8y agoWhat about EU citizens living in the United States? They also fall under the scope of GDPR AFAIK.
- Phlarp 8y agoThen they are under US law. Just as a US citizen would be under a different legal regime in a foreign country.
- djsumdog 8y agoWait is is this still true? Transactions are still public to the world by default? I remember seeing this a while back and would have thought Venmo/Paypal would have changed the default by now. I guess that's not the case?
- coolspot 8y agoI started using Venmo a week ago to pay babysitter. Transactions are still public by default and you can browse strangers and see what they are paying for. Crazy!
- dopamean 8y agoWith the links to their photos and reverse image search you easily find out who people are too. Why on earth does this need to be public.
- matz1 8y agoI welcome this public by default pattern. Same thing could be said from the other side, public by default is an educational problem, it's to figure out the best practices for how to teach it to the older generation on how to adapt in the society where everything is public. To me privacy issue is better solved by radical transparency for everyone. Public by Default is a good initial step.
- briandear 8y agoPlease provide a link to your latest bank statement, your last 5 years of web browsing history, full address, phone number and a link to a gallery of every photo on your phone. Perhaps your last 10 tax returns as well. Maybe a video feed of you and your family. You want “radical transparency?” Lead the way.
- matz1 8y agoSure, if you give me yours as well. Ideally i want all of this to be public for everyone.
- facetube 8y agoI volunteer to hold the data in escrow (I'd also like a detailed log of masturbatory habits as collateral, unless that's also part of the transaction). In all seriousness: you have not thought this through. It'd take weeks to explain in detail the various types of horrors such a policy would be capable of unleashing on humanity. Just... wow.
- roywiggins 8y agoDoxxing everyone will have wildly disparate impacts. How many dead domestic abuse victims is it worth to achieve your ends?
- facetube 8y agoHow many defaced pictures of peoples' kids redistributed to harass people? FYI: I see that insane failure of human decency happening in 2018, on Facebook, in reality currently.
- orarbel1 8y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20180829075129/https://publicbydefault.fyi/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180829075129/https://publicbyd...
- Nightshaxx 8y agoTo be honest I had no idea they even made transactions public and I'm definitely more proactive about turning on privacy settings than the average consumer. I thought it was just a friends thing......I didn't know it was everyone in the world....
- phyzome 8y agoI wonder how this is supposed to benefit Venmo.
- bubblethink 8y agoAnother FYI for anyone who uses venmo. A few months ago, they changed their method for adding bank accounts. In most cases, they force you to use the plaid method, which straight up asks for your bank password. Do not use it. You will literally give venmo/plaid etc. your entire bank account history. It's done very disingenuously because the log in screen for plaid is meant to look like your bank login.
- sdf43543t345 8y agoThose 3rd party scrapers they use also sell your banking / transaction history. NEVER GIVE AWAY YOUR BANKING CREDENTIALS FOR ANY REASON.
- dopamean 8y agoThat shit should be illegal.
- chatmasta 8y agoIn most cases they even explicitly instruct you to "disable extra security at sign-on" so their scrapers can login with your password. It's absolutely bonkers.
- trumped 8y agothe default settings of most apps have been bad for decades... the mindset need to change...
- cjhanks 8y agoNot long ago Venmo's ability to pay at the website was "Under Construction"... and it never came back. They forced all of their users to perform all transactions via their cell-phone. When I signed up, that was not the deal. I am reasonably responsible online and I never in my wild dreams expected that the default behavior was my purchases would be public knowledge. It was not really a big deal since they weren't embarrassing - but imagine the outrage if VISA had a similar policy. I do not trust Venmo and I hope they go out of business.
- _eht 8y agoSpeaking of bad apps... can people who insist on SPA's please respect default browser based navigation?
- chatmasta 8y agoI'm surprised nobody has commented on the quality of this website. It's really well done! It's entertaining, informative and aesthetically pleasing all at the same time. Nice job to whomever made it.
- scienceman 8y agoExcept that back button doesn't function as expected.
- valuearb 8y agoIt’s terrible. “Soooorry, this content is not intended to be viewed in this resolution - you wouldn't enjoy it! Either change to the portrait orientation or a bigger screen. Thanks for understanding!” And in portrait it’s text is so small to be nearly unreadable.
- fiatjaf 8y agoYes, you do need Bitcoin.