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Facebook Autofill Wants To Store Users' Credit Card Info
cagraham writes "Facebook has teamed up with payment processors PayPal, Braintree, and Stripe, in an attempt to simplify mobile payments. The system allows Facebook members (who have turned over their credit and billing info) to click a 'Autofill with Facebook' button when checking-out on a mobile app. Facebook will then verify the details, and securely transfer a user's info over to the payment processing company. The move is likely aimed at gathering more data on user behavior, which can be used to increase the prices Facebook charges for mobile ads. Whether or not the feature takes off however, will depend almost entirely on how willing users are to trust Facebook with their credit card data."
Fair enough. Add in a new user agreement, in large blinking red letters at the top, so the user doesn't even have to scroll past pages of deliberately obfuscating boilerplate, "Facebook will do this for you. In exchange we will gather buying info tied to your purchases through us to sell ads targetted to your buying habits. Truth be told, we don't care if you buy Depends or urine catheters or Justin Bieber tix, it's all done automatically by computer aggregate anyway."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I'm with you there. I rediscovered my cousins, aunts, and uncles after 40 years through them finding me on Facebook. I keep up on their activities and assume they keep up on what I do based on the comments I've received. While they do have whacky beliefs (which are reflected in the occasional "Obama is declaring Martial Law on Oct 1st!111!11!!!!!!1" posting), it's still good to stay in touch.
But data collection (even though I keep my likes and details to myself), video ads, comment systems that require a Facebook account, and now this might be the tipping point.
I likely won't close the account. Most likely I'll just stop using it just like I've stopped going to several forums I used to frequent due to the number of crazy posts and responses.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
I'm starting to wonder if they're just trolling us. Facebook's policies and very reason for existence runs contrary to what I was taught as a child, which was anti-narcissism (ie, any sort of notoriety based on achievement, not simple vanity), speaking when one only has something to say and keeping one's personal life personal (as opposed to, "look at me with this drink in my hand! Look at me with this puppy! Look at me with these whores!"), and now, keeping one's finances close to one's chest. The Internet age with the ability to own a domain name and effectively vanity-publish has changed some of that, but "Social Media" has made it extremely simple to talk-at people without necessarily talking-to people.
I never signed up for Facebook in the first place. I'd had my own domain for a time, and ran my own web log, but decided that it wasn't worth the effort and that what I was willing to share with the rest of humanity wasn't something that the rest of humanity was interested in. When I've seen others using Facebook I continue to get that vibe. I don't know what I'd do in your shoes, but having never had an account and seeing all of the BS makes me happy that I never did have an account in the first place.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Why would I trust them with anything else?
That's you and me.
But the mindless hoards out there like the "convenience". And they may be under the erroneous impression that if there's a mistake or theft of their phone, they can just call their bank and do a charge back. It will most likely work with a theft of ones phone - after a police report is filed and then sending copies to your bank. But a mistake or fraud by someone else?
Let's use Roku as example. when I created a Roku account online a year or so ago (have to in order to use the thing - no technical reason, though) they "require" that you put payment information in. Now you can chat with customer service and demand to be exempted - after they give you the BS about "your convenience" - they'll exempt you or you can delete the payment information after signing up - if it's really deleted, I have no idea.
While in their channel store, I see the "Buddhist Channel" and in the description is says it's "Free". The after adding it and going to the channel, this pop-up comes up and says "We are charging you $1 a month to" pay for costs or some reason like that.
They slid that right in there. Now, IF I was stupid enough to have given Roku my payment information, I can just imagine what I would have to go through to stop it. Roku get a 30%+ commission on this shit so they aren't going to be too thrilled about the problem.
Bank backing me up? Ahahahahaha.
Here's what I've seen too aften in situations like this:
Bank calls merchant and tells them that you are disputing the charge.
Merchant: "Nope! He hit the OK button. It's valid!"
Bank to you: 'You owe it."
You" "Funk'in A!"
On the support forums, some folks rationalize it with "iTunes does it!"
And we have all heard the horror stories of $1,000 bills because a kid, who didn't know what they were doing was just buying shit.
tl;dr - Giving payment information up front doesn't give that many protections and opens you up to fraud and other unethical behavior.