{"id":11661,"date":"2018-08-27T09:16:55","date_gmt":"2018-08-27T16:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/?p=11661"},"modified":"2018-08-27T10:28:41","modified_gmt":"2018-08-27T17:28:41","slug":"dear-venmo-update-your-privacy-settings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/blogarchive\/blog\/2018\/08\/27\/dear-venmo-update-your-privacy-settings\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear Venmo: Update Your Privacy Settings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month, privacy researcher and Mozilla Fellow Hang Do Thi Duc released Public By Default<\/a>, a sobering look at the vast amount of personal data that\u2019s easily accessible on Venmo, the mobile payment app.<\/p>\n

By using Venmo\u2019s public API and its \u201cpublic by default\u201d setting for user transactions, Hang was able to watch a couple feud on Valentine\u2019s Day, observe a woman\u2019s junk food habits, and peer into a marijuana dealer\u2019s business operations. Seven million people use Venmo every month<\/a> \u2014 and many may not know that their transactions are available for anyone to see.<\/p>\n

Privacy, and not publicity, should be the default.<\/p>\n

Despite widespread coverage<\/a> of Hang\u2019s work \u2014 and a petition by Mozilla<\/a> that has garnered more than 17,000 signatures \u2014 Venmo transactions are still public by default.<\/p>\n

But on August 23, Bloomberg reported<\/a> that \u201cIn recent weeks, executives at PayPal Holdings Inc., the parent company of Venmo, were weighing whether to remove the option to post and view public transactions, said a person familiar with the deliberations. It\u2019s unclear if those discussions are still ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, we\u2019re urging Venmo: See these important discussions through. Put users\u2019 privacy first by making transactions <\/b>private<\/i><\/b> by default.<\/b><\/p>\n

\n

Ashley Boyd<\/a> is Mozilla’s VP of Advocacy.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month, privacy researcher and Mozilla Fellow Hang Do Thi Duc released Public By Default, a sobering look at the vast amount of personal data that\u2019s easily accessible on Venmo, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1532,"featured_media":11662,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[290369,847],"tags":[],"coauthors":[311813],"yoast_head":"\nDear Venmo: Update Your Privacy Settings - The Mozilla Blog (Archived)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/blogarchive\/blog\/2018\/08\/27\/dear-venmo-update-your-privacy-settings\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ashley Boyd\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/blogarchive\/blog\/2018\/08\/27\/dear-venmo-update-your-privacy-settings\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/blogarchive\/blog\/2018\/08\/27\/dear-venmo-update-your-privacy-settings\/\",\"name\":\"Dear Venmo: Update Your Privacy Settings - 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