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People Are Using Venmo To Spy On Cheating Spouses (marketwatch.com)
According to MarketWatch's Leslie Albrecht, people are using the peer-to-peer payment app Venmo to find out if their spouse is cheating. Some are even saying the app is more effective than Facebook at this sort of investigation. "What you're seeing on Instagram or Facebook is what they want you to see," said Abby Faber, a 19-year-old freshman at Indiana University. "They're edited pictures that they put up. But with Venmo, it's very normal casual interactions. It's what they were doing and spending money on." From the report: Some users seem to forget that their transactions are public by default, and their payment activity provides an unfiltered paper trail of what's really happening in their lives. In [Faber's] case, she checked up on her ex-boyfriend and saw he was spending money on pizza and the popular video game Fortnite -- and making regular payments to one girl, who Faber guessed is his new hook-up.
Venmo has had a social component since it launched in 2009. Users see a feed of both their own friends' payments and total strangers' activity every time they open the app, and it's easy to look up users. Exact amounts aren't listed, but you can see who's paying who and which words or emoji they use to describe the payment. The social feed is Venmo's "secret sauce," said Erin Mackey, a spokeswoman for Venmo and its parent company PayPal. In fact, it's usually the reason people are logging on. "Our most active users check Venmo daily and the average user checks Venmo two to three times per week -- and it's not for payments, but to see what their friends and family are doing." The report mentions a settlement Venmo reached with the FTC last year over its public-by-default social component. The FTC accused (PDF) Venmo of "misleading" users about the fact that they needed to change two separate privacy settings to make their transactions completely private. "Venmo reached a settlement with the FTC, and a company spokesperson noted that users now have three options for controlling who can see their payments," reports MarketWatch.
Venmo has had a social component since it launched in 2009. Users see a feed of both their own friends' payments and total strangers' activity every time they open the app, and it's easy to look up users. Exact amounts aren't listed, but you can see who's paying who and which words or emoji they use to describe the payment. The social feed is Venmo's "secret sauce," said Erin Mackey, a spokeswoman for Venmo and its parent company PayPal. In fact, it's usually the reason people are logging on. "Our most active users check Venmo daily and the average user checks Venmo two to three times per week -- and it's not for payments, but to see what their friends and family are doing." The report mentions a settlement Venmo reached with the FTC last year over its public-by-default social component. The FTC accused (PDF) Venmo of "misleading" users about the fact that they needed to change two separate privacy settings to make their transactions completely private. "Venmo reached a settlement with the FTC, and a company spokesperson noted that users now have three options for controlling who can see their payments," reports MarketWatch.
"In [Faber's] case, she checked up on her ex-boyfriend and saw he was spending money on pizza and the popular video game Fortnite -- and making regular payments to one girl, who Faber guessed is his new hook-up. "
That's a hooker.
...would someone use a payment system that tells everyone else what they're spending money on? Is the Snowflake Generation so narcissistic that they can't keep anything private?
What ... the ... actual ... goddamned ... fuck????
I had to Google, but this is a PayPal app, which makes your fucking transactions public by default?
Jesus mother fucking Christ almighty ... so, PayPal are assholes and people are idiots?
Why the fuck would you be using a payment app which makes your transactions public by default?
Fucking people and their social media, I will never understand this bullshit.
Whatever, I don't give a fuck what you idiots do. I don't understand it, but run wild, just leave me the fuck out of it.
It seems venmo is a peer to peer payment app that also lets you leave social media comments.
In fact the platform started as a text messaging service. Its seeing huge growth with Millennials to 'settle up' with each other. Think, your drinks tab, sharing a cab, selling a game.
I think us lower UIDs, who have a solid memory of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, remember that spying was the key to rounding up millions of 'non conformists' for imprisonment or extermination. Young people don't have this historic memory of how psychopaths in power can misuse this information.
Statistically the world is becoming more peaceful and perhaps us oldies are just paranoid: time will tell!
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