Both. When you sign up for a Venmo account, your privacy defaults to Public. You have to change it to private.
For any one transaction, the privacy will follow the more restrictive setting.
It’s both.
The security for a particular transaction defaults to the most strict of the two participants’ default security settings.
But the default for everyone’s security settings is “fully public to the world”. So if you and your counterparty both have never tightened up your default security, then the entire world can see that you paid me $100 yesterday for “services rendered”.
Once you have reset your default to “private to me and my counterparty only”, then every subsequent transaction you participate in will be private like that.
I was just on their website to double check my settings. Which were set to fully private. I rarely use Venmo, but sometimes it’s the only option I have in common with my counterparty. Anyhow, I found the settings easy to find, and the options easy to understand.
The trouble of course is people that assume privacy is the default and/or who have never read the directions on anything in their life.
Madison Cawthorne. I’ll never forget the name of that deranged jerk. I always thought it sounded like the most ridiculous name you could think up for the villain in some bosom-heaver of a romance novel. And Madison lives up to the joke his name is.
If The Boy Named Sue is to be believed, giving a child an unusual name has real consequences. Be careful parents; you may spawn a monster.
Same reason some people like to drive around in very expensive cars. Because it soothes their fragile egos. That’s not everyone, of course, but I’m sure that’s some people’s reason.
How is that easier than paypal?
Who cares whether it’s easier? Both Venmo and PayPal are used by various people.
Because I don’t know anyone who has PayPal, but everyone and their grandma has Venmo.
I also like Zelle, but you have to have a bank that works with Zelle. Anyone can download Venmo.
I would never use it except that with two service providers Venmo is all they take and it’s not worth fighting over.
I don’t really care that people know I paid my house cleaner or my landscaper.
Why in god’s name would any financial program have this as a setting, let alone a default setting? And why would any sane individual then choose to use this system?!?
I’ve heard about this “Venmo” thing, but not being the US, have never used it, and had no idea it was this stupid.
It’s the gamification of everything. Robin Hood gives you fireworks when you make a trade because you’re a child who gets gratification for stupid shit. Don’t ask me- I’m way too old to care about any of this.
Because it’s so freakin’ convenient. If I want to pay a service provider who doesn’t take credit cards (say, my handyman or cleaning lady) … I tap a few buttons on my phone. Don’t need to scrounge up cash, don’t need to write a check, and they don’t need to go to the bank. Easy peasy.
I never realized the default setting was Public, but I really didn’t care if the world sees that I paid a handyman. But I’ve since set it to private.
Because it’s so freakin’ convenient
The Canadian equivalent, Interac, is run by the banks and credit unions, so we don’t need to download an app from some company and worry about security. Bank account info is closely held under privacy rules. It’s extremely easy to use.
After reading your post, I went and closed out my Venmo account. I had never used it anyway. One less thing in cyberspace with my name on it is good.
The equivalent here is Zelle, which is run by the big banks. It’s extremely convenient. I use it all the time. However, unlike Interac, not every bank participates. As we’ve discussed before, there are really only about five banks in Canada, as compared to over 4000 banks in the US. So it’s harder to get uniform adaptation of any financial technology. The advantage of Venmo is that it’s independent of the banks, so you can use it even if your account is at one of the tiny local banks.
It’s payments + social networking, the public payments make it easier to add people in your friend group. Think college kids who are constantly changing money with friends of friends who they may not otherwise have contact info for. Yes, easy enough to get, but even easier once your friend Jen pays Liz and you can then see it and click on Liz’s name knowing it’s the right Liz.
Is it the best system? Surely not. Is it even a good system? Probably no. But slightly lowering the barrier to make payments to causal acquaintances helped it build a user base, and so it out-competed other apps.
I myself have not changed my default settings. I used to set individual transactions to private but at some point I stopped caring. There’s no real data leak in random friends or friends-of-friends or even strangers knowing about my kid’s weekly music lesson.
That’s really the point.
The system was designed from the git-go to do its own advertising to your friend and acquaintance group. And those peoples’ friends and so on. Making everything public is how those connections are exposed for others to piggy back on.
None of that is a good idea for anyone but Venmo’s stockholders. But since there are no financial privacy laws in the USA, that wasn’t an obstacle.
Swearing back to the general area of the Signalgate brouhaha, it seems that Hegseth Ajax Mr. Whiskyleaks has also been allowing his wife to sit in on sensitive meetings.
I saw news reports that the text message chain revealed information about how the Houthi leaders were tracked; their girlfriends were watched. So that’s not information that needs to have been shared.
Have you seen the way American banks operate? To me, “run by the banks” means that I do need to worry, very much, about security.