4 ms·

Venmo: how the payment app exposes our private lives

20 points by tech_timc 8y ago

Simulacra 8y ago
FYI covered extensively previously here, i.e.: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14833269 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14833269
- gcb0 8y ago
  that feels like the single worst comment thread on HN starts woth 200 comments of pundits going back and forth between "everyone I know" and "nobody" uses this app then clueless ppl trying to defend that this app is the only way poor colege students can properly pay a bar bill with friends if they were not drinking, as the only alternative in their universe is spliting the bill equally, as if money or credit card had minds of their own or something.
neom 8y ago
I find venmo part social network part p2p payment platform. My friends and I have good fun commenting/joking on each others transactions.
vxNsr 8y ago
I set my default privacy policy to private, problem solved. In fact I just checked and venmo allows you to in one click set all your past transactions to private. Either way, people ignoring the fact that their seemingly intimate conversations are public is true across social networks.
- l9k 8y ago
  Almost everyone knows it's public. They just accept it.
  - ams6110 8y ago
    I think this is the disconnect that (some) older people have. I resist using any platform that exposes my private life like this. And my private life is utterly routine, I "have nothing to hide" but I still don't accept it should be normal that everything is public. Younger generations might just be conditioned to see it as normal. That's worrisome to me, but a good illustration that humans adapt to whatever culture they're raised in. If you grow up in a glass house, it's just the way things are.
    - l9k 8y ago
      “Venmo is an unusual app because it combines social media with financial transactions,” said the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s Christine Bannon. “One of those is usually fairly public and one is usually very private, so it’s hard to gauge consumer expectations of privacy.” The main shift we're seeing, especially in younger generation, is the transition from the private life to the public in many areas, and the financial info is the latest of this kind. I'm wondering what's next.
- izzydata 8y ago
  It is always weird seeing people talk on twitter as if they were having a private conversation.
  - vxNsr 8y ago
    Truly bizarre, though after watching Chef I think I can understand a little better why it might happen for people who don't really "get" the platform.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  I set my default privacy policy to private, problem solved. If you have to set it, then it's not the default. That's the point of the article: That Venmo exposes personal information by default.
  - jakebasile 8y ago
    It's "default" in the sense that it applies by default to all future transactions.
  - vxNsr 8y ago
    As jake said, I changing the default setting for future transactions, yes it's set to public when you create your account, but if you're not willing to read anything, at all, when using a service I'm not sure there's any way to protect you anyways. In the app it's pretty clear what's gonna be private and public when you're setting up the transaction and if you can't be bothered to pay attention then idk what to tell you. Also as others have pointed out, it seems most people enjoy the social aspect of venmo, in fact they'll usually post things in a way that seems to be for a more public audience, I'd argue that venmo would be doing a disservice to its users if it forced them to change their privacy policy from private to public when most people seem to want it to be public.
echelon 8y ago
There are lots of other apps in this space. I'm surprised anyone would use the one that airs their dirty laundry in public. When I am asked to use Venmo, I get to see how much my friends pay in rent, who they're dating, etc. It's super creepy.
- l9k 8y ago
  I think that, to them, it's not dirty laundry. In today's society, people accept to have more and more of their life in public and be a lot more open (for better or worse).
- esoterica 8y ago
  No you can't, Venmo doesn't show you the dollar amounts of other people's payments.
djsumdog 8y ago
My roommate and one of my friends on the other side of the country keep telling me to use Venmo. One refuses to get a PayPal account. I hate the concept of Venmo, because every other country in the world has direct bank-to-bank transfers and we don't in America: https://penguindreams.org/blog/the-american-banking-system-is-still-in-the-1990s/ https://penguindreams.org/blog/the-american-banking-system-i... I've heard 5/3 Bank lets you put in someone's ABA/Account number and do direct person-to-person ACH. There's Zelle, but it's a private implementation by individual banks, not a federally mandated and regulated system. I wish we'd get mandated person-to-person digital transfers. Right now, I have to print out a check with my ABA/Account number and payment details, hand it to my roommate/landlord and he has to scan it with his phone in order to pay rent.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  It would be better to have a mandated decent system, but there are lots of decent-in-application systems that don't either make transactions public by default or require the recipient to provide their banking info in advance to the sender.

20 points by tech_timc 8y ago

FYI covered extensively previously here, i.e.: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14833269 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14833269

gcb0 8y ago
that feels like the single worst comment thread on HN starts woth 200 comments of pundits going back and forth between "everyone I know" and "nobody" uses this app then clueless ppl trying to defend that this app is the only way poor colege students can properly pay a bar bill with friends if they were not drinking, as the only alternative in their universe is spliting the bill equally, as if money or credit card had minds of their own or something.

neom 8y ago

I find venmo part social network part p2p payment platform. My friends and I have good fun commenting/joking on each others transactions.

vxNsr 8y ago

I set my default privacy policy to private, problem solved. In fact I just checked and venmo allows you to in one click set all your past transactions to private. Either way, people ignoring the fact that their seemingly intimate conversations are public is true across social networks.

l9k 8y ago
Almost everyone knows it's public. They just accept it.
- ams6110 8y ago
  I think this is the disconnect that (some) older people have. I resist using any platform that exposes my private life like this. And my private life is utterly routine, I "have nothing to hide" but I still don't accept it should be normal that everything is public. Younger generations might just be conditioned to see it as normal. That's worrisome to me, but a good illustration that humans adapt to whatever culture they're raised in. If you grow up in a glass house, it's just the way things are.
  - l9k 8y ago
    “Venmo is an unusual app because it combines social media with financial transactions,” said the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s Christine Bannon. “One of those is usually fairly public and one is usually very private, so it’s hard to gauge consumer expectations of privacy.” The main shift we're seeing, especially in younger generation, is the transition from the private life to the public in many areas, and the financial info is the latest of this kind. I'm wondering what's next.
izzydata 8y ago
It is always weird seeing people talk on twitter as if they were having a private conversation.
- vxNsr 8y ago
  Truly bizarre, though after watching Chef I think I can understand a little better why it might happen for people who don't really "get" the platform.
reaperducer 8y ago
I set my default privacy policy to private, problem solved. If you have to set it, then it's not the default. That's the point of the article: That Venmo exposes personal information by default.
- jakebasile 8y ago
  It's "default" in the sense that it applies by default to all future transactions.
- vxNsr 8y ago
  As jake said, I changing the default setting for future transactions, yes it's set to public when you create your account, but if you're not willing to read anything, at all, when using a service I'm not sure there's any way to protect you anyways. In the app it's pretty clear what's gonna be private and public when you're setting up the transaction and if you can't be bothered to pay attention then idk what to tell you. Also as others have pointed out, it seems most people enjoy the social aspect of venmo, in fact they'll usually post things in a way that seems to be for a more public audience, I'd argue that venmo would be doing a disservice to its users if it forced them to change their privacy policy from private to public when most people seem to want it to be public.

echelon 8y ago

There are lots of other apps in this space. I'm surprised anyone would use the one that airs their dirty laundry in public. When I am asked to use Venmo, I get to see how much my friends pay in rent, who they're dating, etc. It's super creepy.

l9k 8y ago
I think that, to them, it's not dirty laundry. In today's society, people accept to have more and more of their life in public and be a lot more open (for better or worse).
esoterica 8y ago
No you can't, Venmo doesn't show you the dollar amounts of other people's payments.

djsumdog 8y ago

My roommate and one of my friends on the other side of the country keep telling me to use Venmo. One refuses to get a PayPal account. I hate the concept of Venmo, because every other country in the world has direct bank-to-bank transfers and we don't in America: https://penguindreams.org/blog/the-american-banking-system-is-still-in-the-1990s/ https://penguindreams.org/blog/the-american-banking-system-i... I've heard 5/3 Bank lets you put in someone's ABA/Account number and do direct person-to-person ACH. There's Zelle, but it's a private implementation by individual banks, not a federally mandated and regulated system. I wish we'd get mandated person-to-person digital transfers. Right now, I have to print out a check with my ABA/Account number and payment details, hand it to my roommate/landlord and he has to scan it with his phone in order to pay rent.

dragonwriter 8y ago
It would be better to have a mandated decent system, but there are lots of decent-in-application systems that don't either make transactions public by default or require the recipient to provide their banking info in advance to the sender.