Today we were again looking for bargains on eBay classifieds and apart from the fact that people are getting more and more crazy, we noticed the following: If you pay via PayPal, the company lists all customers with their full names during the payment process.
This article is about the German PayPal – we did not check the service in other countries if the behavior is the same there.
We couldn’t believe it at first – you usually just needed the full email address and then the money was sent to that one person. However, if you now enter parts of the name, as is usual with an e-mail address, all matching PayPal customers will be listed, including first and last names and a photo. By the way, this is not limited to a one-time request for the respective payment process: You can simply go through all the names and see who is on PayPal.
We’ve been looking for ourselves, but haven’t found us. The crucial factor seems to be that you have created the PayPal.me link for your account. Like Twitter, you get an @username and then appear in the publicly visible list. We tried this for our account and this is how it is:
PayPal.me link leads to public visibility of your name
When creating a PayPal.me link, you upload your photo and select your desired link.
To complete the whole thing, you have to tick a box that allows PayPal to make all this information publicly available. So you can’t blame PayPal for not asking beforehand.
However, many may have forgotten that they gave their consent here. We googled two people and called them and they were very surprised. Even the tech freaks amongst our friends did not have this function on their radar – and found out directly how you can restore your privacy.
PayPal: disable public visibility of your profile
In your account under Manage data protection settings you go to “Privacy for searches” and can then set a slider to off so that your professional no longer appears in the search.
We would advise you to do the following: If you have set up a PayPal.me link, at least switch off in your profile that it appears in the public search. With payment service providers, everything should be as data-saving as possible. In principle, there is no place for a photo either. The function that everyone is listed with their full name and picture is a nice starting point for hacking attacks on you. The two names we googled for research led to more information in seconds. We immediately had a telephone number, postal address and e-mail. Identity theft ahoy.
As mentioned already: PayPal asks for a small tick in front of this function, but the consequences may not be very clear to many. We then called the state commissioner for data protection and file inspection in Brandenburg (because PayPal has its German headquarters there) and asked about the companies behavior. The situation is well known and there, too, the consideration is to assess whether PayPal is a payment service provider or a social network. However, the matter will be decided at European level by the CNPD in Luxembourg (where PayPal’s European headquarters are located).
PayPal is becoming a social network
But no matter how it turns out: If you don’t use Facebook and Twitter because they’re too public for you, then check the PayPal settings mentioned above. The payment service provider is slowly introducing similar functions as other social networks.
