5 ms·

So what is this sacrifice of privacy the author mentions? I mean is this a legitimate statement? While I can sympathize with the author's mindset this seems lik

So what is this sacrifice of privacy the author mentions? I mean is this a legitimate statement? While I can sympathize with the author's mindset this seems like a loaded statement based on nothing. If I'm wrong and Mint is leaking my info like a sieve please tell me now.

kevindong 10y ago
I do feel slightly uneasy when I use Mint. Primarily because Mint is essentially just a web scraper. They take the account credentials you give them (and presumably encrypt them) and periodically login your bank's web portal, scrape the .html file that contains all of your transactions, works some magic to parse through it, and then displays all of your transactions. I'm not entirely sure if Mint sells your financial information (i.e., what you spend money on, how much you have, etc.) to outside companies (namely, financial institutions). But, they for sure analyze your transactions to show you paid "recommendations" of what financial products you should use. I've browsed through some of their recommendations before. The majority of them are middling or good, but a significant portion (<15%) are incredible awful.
- CorvusCrypto 10y ago
  All financial institutions sell your information, electronic or not. In my company we use services that allow us to pull tax data on every resident in the state (of CA) and we get their social, phone numbers, owned/rented properties, outstanding loans, etc. While I totally get the uneasiness of giving info to a third party, we all do that anyway in the analog world as well. and yes, this means Mint probably sells your info, though they cover it in the privacy statement they have. [guess not actually (see reply from georgeglue1)] EDIT: If your first statement is true, that tbh is a bit more of an alarming thing to know... oO
  - georgeglue1 10y ago
    Actually, Intuit is one of those mega-companies that could run a successful hedge fund (or sell data/access to one), but has too much to lose in their core businesses to allow them to sell data. The Mint data set might be worth, say, 8 figures a year, but if you risk a user revolt on Quickbooks, it's not worth it.
  - sukilot 10y ago
    The data you describe is a standard credit report and public records, not personal consumption data.
    - CorvusCrypto 10y ago
      This is very true. Keeping this in mind it's easier yet to get into why someone would want to shy away from 3rd party online services.
  - FT_intern 10y ago
    Wait what? It's possible to pull up random people's social, loans, etc.? As in data with PII and not anonymized data?
    - db48x 10y ago
      Pretty much, yea (they usually look you up by SSN though). Its supposed to only yo the "right" people (some kind of accreditation process), but there was that story recently where a credits reporting agency was selling the data directly to some identity thieves...
- georgeglue1 10y ago
  Actually, I worked at Mint for a little while when my previous startup was acquired into the Intuit fold. Surprisingly, Intuit actually never sold any Mint user data (including anonymized or batched data). The Mint data set isn't actually that valuable when compared to what Intuit makes from its 'trustworthy' brand. And sorry for the recommendations. We tried to target intelligently and scientifically, but sometimes awkward-ly targeted recommendations performed too well for us to not run them.
  - CorvusCrypto 10y ago
    This makes me feel a lot better about using Mint as well. Thanks for replying man!
  - kevindong 10y ago
    Huh, that's cool. I would've fully expected Intuit to sell user data. It's not so much that the recommendation aren't relevant (they are actually incredibly relevant; I found the cashback estimator for a given credit card based upon my actual transaction history to be very useful), but rather some of the products are just outrageously awful. (quick side note: I just checked my Mint recommendation and I'm going to recant what I said about a "significant portion" of my recommendations being awful; there's just one awful product). That one awful product is "WebsterOne® Relationship Checking". That account has a ~$15/month account fee (waived if you keep a $4,000 average balance).
db48x 10y ago
Mint is a third party to whom you give not just the list of every transaction you make, but also the passwords for all of your accounts. That seems like a legitimate loss of privacy to me.
- CorvusCrypto 10y ago
  Ah okay yes I understand. I understood that statement in a different way. Yeah to be honest I'm okay with all of that. Unless it gets leaked negligently or maliciously that is, hence my honest question.

kevindong 10y ago

I do feel slightly uneasy when I use Mint. Primarily because Mint is essentially just a web scraper. They take the account credentials you give them (and presumably encrypt them) and periodically login your bank's web portal, scrape the .html file that contains all of your transactions, works some magic to parse through it, and then displays all of your transactions. I'm not entirely sure if Mint sells your financial information (i.e., what you spend money on, how much you have, etc.) to outside companies (namely, financial institutions). But, they for sure analyze your transactions to show you paid "recommendations" of what financial products you should use. I've browsed through some of their recommendations before. The majority of them are middling or good, but a significant portion (<15%) are incredible awful.

CorvusCrypto 10y ago
All financial institutions sell your information, electronic or not. In my company we use services that allow us to pull tax data on every resident in the state (of CA) and we get their social, phone numbers, owned/rented properties, outstanding loans, etc. While I totally get the uneasiness of giving info to a third party, we all do that anyway in the analog world as well. and yes, this means Mint probably sells your info, though they cover it in the privacy statement they have. [guess not actually (see reply from georgeglue1)] EDIT: If your first statement is true, that tbh is a bit more of an alarming thing to know... oO
- georgeglue1 10y ago
  Actually, Intuit is one of those mega-companies that could run a successful hedge fund (or sell data/access to one), but has too much to lose in their core businesses to allow them to sell data. The Mint data set might be worth, say, 8 figures a year, but if you risk a user revolt on Quickbooks, it's not worth it.
- sukilot 10y ago
  The data you describe is a standard credit report and public records, not personal consumption data.
  - CorvusCrypto 10y ago
    This is very true. Keeping this in mind it's easier yet to get into why someone would want to shy away from 3rd party online services.
- FT_intern 10y ago
  Wait what? It's possible to pull up random people's social, loans, etc.? As in data with PII and not anonymized data?
  - db48x 10y ago
    Pretty much, yea (they usually look you up by SSN though). Its supposed to only yo the "right" people (some kind of accreditation process), but there was that story recently where a credits reporting agency was selling the data directly to some identity thieves...
georgeglue1 10y ago
Actually, I worked at Mint for a little while when my previous startup was acquired into the Intuit fold. Surprisingly, Intuit actually never sold any Mint user data (including anonymized or batched data). The Mint data set isn't actually that valuable when compared to what Intuit makes from its 'trustworthy' brand. And sorry for the recommendations. We tried to target intelligently and scientifically, but sometimes awkward-ly targeted recommendations performed too well for us to not run them.
- CorvusCrypto 10y ago
  This makes me feel a lot better about using Mint as well. Thanks for replying man!
- kevindong 10y ago
  Huh, that's cool. I would've fully expected Intuit to sell user data. It's not so much that the recommendation aren't relevant (they are actually incredibly relevant; I found the cashback estimator for a given credit card based upon my actual transaction history to be very useful), but rather some of the products are just outrageously awful. (quick side note: I just checked my Mint recommendation and I'm going to recant what I said about a "significant portion" of my recommendations being awful; there's just one awful product). That one awful product is "WebsterOne® Relationship Checking". That account has a ~$15/month account fee (waived if you keep a $4,000 average balance).

db48x 10y ago

Mint is a third party to whom you give not just the list of every transaction you make, but also the passwords for all of your accounts. That seems like a legitimate loss of privacy to me.

CorvusCrypto 10y ago
Ah okay yes I understand. I understood that statement in a different way. Yeah to be honest I'm okay with all of that. Unless it gets leaked negligently or maliciously that is, hence my honest question.