PayPal to share personal data with third parties starting next summer

While today's apparently bad news might seem outrageous at first sight, the reader should keep in mind that PayPal has more than seven months to make things right. For now, the story involves sharing data with third parties by default, as the popular digital payments service has just added a "Personalized shopping" setting and chose to enable data sharing instead of leaving the box unchecked.

Under the title mentioned above, the setting checked by default is described with the line "Let us share products, offers, and rewards you might like with participating stores," and then it is mentioned that PayPal will build "more personal experiences" for its users "starting early summer 2025." Finally, the description of this personalized experience also mentions that the user can opt in and out "at any time by adjusting this setting," which raises the basic question: Why not have the setting disabled by default?

For now, one can easily go to Settings > Data & Privacy > Manage shared info > Personalized shopping to disable data sharing for personalized shopping experiences, but there's one major problem remaining. As per PayPal's Privacy Policy, the information disclosed to third parties deemed necessary to complete transactions can be used according to the privacy policies of these entities, regardless of the settings enabled or disabled by the users in their PayPal accounts.

In the end, it looks like, regardless of what will happen with the personalized experience provided by the digital payments service, the users who are preoccupied with the privacy of their data will also have to check the privacy policies of the third parties they choose to pay via PayPal.

Those who want to know more about PayPal's history can currently grab The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley in one of the four formats available (audiobook, Kindle, hardcover, and paperback), starting at $0.99 (audiobook with membership).