by CSEThrowaway on 8/30/18, 1:43 PM
I 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.
by bubblethink on 8/30/18, 6:14 PM
Another 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.
by decasia on 8/30/18, 1:19 PM
It'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.
by djsumdog on 8/30/18, 2:33 PM
Wait 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?
by cjhanks on 8/30/18, 8:41 PM
Not 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.
by orarbel1 on 8/30/18, 3:30 PM
by chatmasta on 8/31/18, 1:33 AM
I'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.
by Nightshaxx on 8/30/18, 3:48 PM
To 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....
by heinrichf on 8/30/18, 1:35 PM
by _eht on 8/30/18, 9:59 PM
Speaking of bad apps... can people who insist on SPA's please respect default browser based navigation?
by phyzome on 8/30/18, 4:53 PM
I wonder how this is supposed to benefit Venmo.
by trumped on 8/30/18, 8:22 PM
the default settings of most apps have been bad for decades... the mindset need to change...
by fiatjaf on 8/31/18, 6:19 PM
Yes, you do need Bitcoin.
by s_dev on 8/30/18, 1:48 PM
This 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.
by matz1 on 8/30/18, 2:59 PM
I 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.