I'm surprised that they haven't been doing this from the start tbh. Obviously they've been selling your data to whoever, which is really the same I guess.
The card companies can get data from the Merchant Category Code to infer the nature of purchases, without specifics. The stores also have a record of what items you bought, which could also be sold unless you have a contract with the store that guarantees they won't sell your purchase history (at least in the countries without strong privacy laws)
So happy I deleted my account with them 5 years ago after going throught their laughably bad customer protection (the only reason I had them to begin with, I had figured it was a good idea to have a buffer between merchants and my CC)
In the end, it was perfect because, as they refused to help, I went straight to the credit card to reverse the fraudulent charge and closed all accounts with PayPal... Then I get a whiny email from them when the CC took the funds and left them holding the bag... Sweet minor victory
Fucking within like 2 minutes of using their apps too, they ask, "do you like the app?" Then another popup that says, "provide feedback for why you don't like our app?"
Because you keep getting in the way of me actually doing what I need to do. And it's getting uninstalled as soon as I'm done with it.
That's very different, they want you to either pay or not have access. This would be you still having access, but being paid for giving them data voluntarily.
That's perfectly legal and employed across many European business entities.
By showing you an annoying popup every time you use PayPal, and eventually you'll accidentally click OK and it will mysteriously remember this and never ask you again.
PayPal will use data from billions of customer transactions to supercharge its nascent ad business.
The new PayPal Ads group is headed by recent hire Mark Grether, a senior vice president and GM at PayPal, who says the budding advertising operation will "help make merchants smarter to sell more products and services effectively, as well as enable consumers to discover more of what they love."
But, his reported statement doesn't really dwell on the fact that it will be using customer data, including purchase history, to pull this off.
In addition to the main PayPal platform, it also operates cash transfer app Venmo and Honey, a browser extension designed to find deals online.
The report also mentions that Venmo will see fewer ads served in order to not drive off its younger users.
PayPal's data on users' purchases and other transactions, combined with AI, might prove to be great at advertising, though probably to the consternation and frustration of recipients.
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