Depending on where you’re based, you’ll find PayPal’s new data-sharing option under a different name. Remember, you may not see this at all if you’re based in a country that doesn’t allow it.
If you’re in the US, you should head to your profile Settings and tap on Data & privacy. Under Manage shared info, click on Personalized shopping. You should see the option enabled by default. Toggle off the button at the right to opt-out.
If you are in the UK like me, you’ll see something different after you head to your profile Settings and tap on Data & privacy.
Under Manage your privacy settings, here you’ll see an Interest-based marketing tab – click on it. At this point, two options will appear: Interest-based marketing on PayPal and Internet-based marketing on your accounts. You have to tap on each of these and toggle off the button at the right to opt-out. These instructions can also apply if you’re based in the EU.
In the EU this kind of automatic opting-in to marketing/data sharing is against the GDPR as it requires explicit consent from user/customer. I’m in the EU and have those settings but they were both toggled off, as expected.
UK here and they are turned on.
Thanks a lot, Brexit :(
they are turned on
Ooh, violate my privacy, daddy.
Even if the UK is not in the EU the GDPR still applies there, just the version it got while it was in the EU tho, no revisions
UK but mine were off ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Spain here, and both were turned on by default. Had to deactivate.
Same in Germany
Just checked it on three different accounts (germany) and each one had those two options turned on.
Mine was already opted-out.
Also based in the EU, and mine were turned on
Can you report that somewhere?
I assume so, but I’m not sure where. I’ll have to Google it later
Remember, you may not see this at all if you’re based in a country that doesn’t allow it.
OP mentioned this
Ireland here, so EU, and both were turned on.
Is your account location set in GB?
Mine is in Germany and opted out. But I think remembering that there was already a post quite some time ago about the same thing.Address is Ireland. No location set in the location section (under name in profile section), but my address is clearly set.
What if I told you this option doesn’t actually get respected?
Then, hopefully, PayPal can look forward to spending at the very least 2% of their worldwide revenue to pay fines.
Thanks, i was thinking id need to go check them later today and that it was kinda illegal. Now i can be rest assured its fiiine
Starting early summer 2025, we’ll be building more personal experiences for you.
Let’s just keep it professional Fintech. Thanks for the post OP.
In the app, under Data and Privacy:
Yep, they turned it on by default. It looks like you have until Nov 27th to turn it off before they share your data.
Let us share products, offers and rewards you might like to help stores personalize your shopping.
This sentence is a masterpiece of omission.
Confirmed this was enabled in my account. Fuckers. Also check out your search privacy settings in your PayPal account too. Also sharing info by default.
Ah so now they’re a poor steward of my data as well as my money?
Yea, paypal is bad news all around
I guess most people don’t know most banks have electronic funds transfer, or virtual credit cards, etc.
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Ye, i dont know how it is worldwide but here in west europe paying online with your bank is just like paying with paypal. The only advantages paypal has over my bank is its return policy and it technically not directly linking the purchase with my personal info.
I havent used paypal in a while tbh…In the US, you typically have to type in your debit/ credit card’s info (the 16-digit number, the 3-digit security code, the cardholder’s name, and the billing address on file with the bank) on a website in order to purchase something unless you’re using PayPal, Google Pay, or something similar to that that the website supports. If you’re using any of those, a pop-up usually opens asking for login info, then you select a card or bank account to use for the purchase.
I know about all of those. But so many websites only accept PayPal - especially small businesses. There’s a bunch of regulatory hurdles a website doesn’t have to worry about if they just have PayPal take care of everything related to payment.
Thanks, disabled. If they want this kind of info then give users a reward for it like 1-2% cashback or coupons. This is just greedy.
They can’t give a reward for a “oh shit we’re running out of hedge fund money, we need to stay solvent , let’s sell out our user’s data”
They should have thought of that before hiring Will Ferrell to be a clown in a commercial for them.
Time to find another useless account I made as young idiot and delete…
God damn I am so tired of this
They also like to just hold onto large chunks of money arbitrarily.
Oh, you’re going to take it up with customer support?
Lololol.
Good post. Just turned it off. I appreciate the heads up.
Mine was off, don’t know if it’s because I’m in California, but I toggled it back and forth to check and left it off.
I’m also in California at the moment and it was toggled on. Is it based on current location or the location when you made the account?
No idea. But I think I’ll check it again every few days
I don’t even see this option on my account. Old Canadian account, but my phone/Paypal app is EU.
Nor I, on my in-Canada account. Desktop access only; I don’t have the Paypal app installed on my phone.
The article’s image shows, under Manage your privacy settings, the options:
-
Permissions you’ve given
-
Interest-based marketing (which is the option pertinent to this issue)
- Interest-based marketing on PayPal
- Interest-based marketing in your other accounts
-
Blocked contacts
But my account’s options are:
-
Permissions you’ve given
-
Manage your cookies
- Marketing
- Performance
- Functional
- Essential
-
Blocked contacts
Possibly the Marketing checkbox is the Canadian version of this? I’ve got that checkbox turned off.
Same account options as yours here on mobile, marketing is also off for me.
Thanks for comparing notes!
-
Off by default for me (EU)
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Was defaulted on for me (EU)
Not a lawyer but I don’t think this silent opt-in is legal.
It is against the GDPR.
It was on for me in Lithuania
On for me in the EU
Doesn’t seem to show for business accounts FYI
Can confirm it’s a no-show for business accounts, same for me in US
Good thing I deleted my PayPal years ago over a previous TOS change.
What do you use instead?
Just standard credit card processing for purchases and zelle or venmo for transfers.
I got bad news about who owns Venmo.
I assume everyone is owned by someone terrible, but the individual policies and changes are what drives me to swap.
I pay for things on sites processed by PayPal too, I just don’t have an account.
The credit card is selling your data as well, in most cases
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Crypto. Works great for everything I previously used PayPal for
Edit: lmao people mad. For what it’s worth BTC is screwed by txn fees and ETH isn’t much better, and there’s the whole scam thing going around, but crypto is still the best libre banking.
While I… dream of a world where something like kaspa is used for such things, quit larping. Crypto is for gambling and money laundering.
No one on Facebook marketplace is going to go “Oh, send me your eth address.”, lmao.
I had a crypto phase. I know the entire ecosystem. Banking? Only if you can trust the backwards literal “who knows” entities you’re dealing with. Should I bring up Celsius or FTX?
The only reputable one I’d even begin to consider would maybe investing in a BTC ETF, at least then you’re clear of transaction fees and you get the same benefit of following the price as you would a Gold or oil fund and you don’t have to touch the poison directly. Ether and Base are going to get absolutely destroyed if Kamala wins and won’t fair much better than a flatline if Trump does, and you can wave goodbye to Arbitrum and Avax since the US isn’t going to give a shit about an outside entity.
In a perfect world, we’d have a modernized version of BTC that isn’t mineable, that’s limited in volume, inexpensive to upkeep, cheap to transfer and usable as a universal currency, but humanity always gets in the way, either in adoption, distrust, greed or shortsightedness. Either the entity developing it gets high and mighty or everyone holding it becomes an influencer, or it turns out it isn’t as eco friendly as you thought it was and the datacenter is on fire…
None of this even touches Brazil blocking X, which is the bulk of the memecoin universe aside from India, and Telegram getting shaky, influencers moving away from crypto and into marketing schemes…
You’re running out of scams.
BTC ETF is a sad state of affairs and has nothing to do with replacing PayPal. I’m talking about strictly using crypto to pay for work or services (i.e. I only pay people online in crypto, I only pay for my DNS/VPN/etc in crypto)
What is someone squatted on your email, starting an unverified account attached to your email address with their phone number, but the fuckers at PayPal won’t do a thing about it?
I had someone hijack my account last year, Like a dummy, I had failed to setup 2FA. I caught it in the morning after they worked it most of the wee hours. Phone and email had been changed. I contacted PP and to my surprise they were effective in righting everything. By the end of the day, it was corrected. I was absolutely shocked they were so helpful, but I guess it can happen. So, maybe try again?
Trust me, we have tried. The problem is that while there was never a PayPal account verified to that email address, somehow a foreign number is attached to it. Every time we have tried to start an account with that email, the verification ping goes to that number, even though the email is unverified. We haven’t found a way to tell PayPal to disassociate that number, because we never had any account attached to it to begin with.
