Due to production problems caused by the effects of the coronavirus on manufacturing and shipping, Facebook has grayed out the buy buttons on its website, and the unit is not for sale on Amazon or Best Buy either. Oculus Quest sold out - the popular Oculus Quest virtual reality system that was so hot to get over the holidays is an even tougher ticket now. 'PayPal is definitely less chatty with third parties than Venmo,' says Jackson. It grabbed what Jackson calls 'minor' information like device type and the amount of time spent on the app. We made three payments on the PayPal app from our home location, and it responded differently than Venmo. PayPal acts differently than Venmoĭespite the practices of a PayPal unit to distribute our personal information to a data collection firm, the parent company apparently acts differently. There's nothing in there about what consumers are giving up by using Venmo. 'Our contracts dictate that these service providers only use your information in connection with the services they perform for us and not for their own benefit.' PayPal did say it works with third-party service providers 'who assist us in providing services to you' or to provide fraud detection. It also declined to answer whether the PayPal app also shares such information with Braze. It declined to answer why it shared my home location and association with Braze. Probably just like I did – a little sick to the stomach. 'How would the CEO of PayPal feel about his home address and contacts being shared with third-party data collection firms?' asks Patrick Jackson, the Chief Technology Officer for security firm Disconnect. You use the app to pay your bill, and, in return, some company you've never heard of now has your address and associations. I discovered this week that when I opened PayPal-owned Venmo to pay my personal trainer and made sure to click 'private,' yet the app recorded my GPS location (home address) and the trainer's name, and sent it off to Braze, a third-party data collection firm. It's great.īut you know what, there's no such thing as free.

I don't have to write a check or pull out some cash.

The app is free, it takes just a second to initiate and finish a transaction. Many of us have ditched cash and, instead, use smartphone apps like Venmo to pay for goods and services. Watch Video: Americans want more control over personal data online

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