Soon whether you wear boxers or briefs will no longer be a closely-held secret because of a data privacy move by PayPal.
At the beginning of October, PayPal sent out an email to its members making a change to its legal agreements in late November.
It doesn’t sound particularly unnerving because they are going to provide information to help you shop. The way that is going to be accomplished, however, has some people concerned. Their more detailed notice states:
*MOUSE PRINT:
The key update to the Privacy Statement (link 1, link 2) explains how we will share information with merchants to personalize your shopping experience and recommend our services to you. Personal information we disclose includes, for example, products, preferences, sizes, and styles we think you’ll like… [emphasis added]
How do they know what you like? According to the Wall Street Journal, they will review your shopping and purchase history, and then sell that information to advertisers.
In most states, your purchases made starting two days before Black Friday will be shared with others unless you opt-out. To opt-out, after you login to PayPay.com, click the settings gear, and then select:
How do you feel about PayPal sharing your very specific shopping information?
Thank you for this information. I went to my PP profile and turned sharing off.
Ditto!
Thank you for the head’s up. I turned mine off immediately. This is an unwarranted, intrusive and seemingly subversive (sneaky) attack on my personal privacy. Instead of asking me my preference, they assumed the right to force it on me buried in obscure fine print. Deceptive!
Good eye, Mouseprint! I received notification from PayPal about this but did not scrutinize it. It certainly wasn’t obvious that I could opt out this easily. Thanks for the heads up!
I think it sucks. But, most likely what this sort of activity does is not cause PayPal to go down the path of requiring me to pay a monthly fee to use PayPal. I saw the notice but did not read it. Of course if the option was off to begin with no one would turn it on. Even with the option off, how do I know that they really don’t still sell my information? Thanks for the heads up Mouse Print.
Agree, it’s another funding mechanism because nothing is free. If everyone turns it off (as I have), it increases the possibility of charging a user fee. The latest Microsoft Outlook email/calendar system has ads appearing in email inboxes, continually, each time you open it. To avoid the ads, you need to subscribe to a fee-based premium version.
Thank you for the heads up on this!
Facebook does this too. I ordered something from an ad on Facebook and I am now inundated with ads from other companies for the same product. The same thing happens when you just click on an ad.
You do know that eBay runs PayPal, right?
This is just another reason to lose PayPal, you do not need their service other than your being lazy.