(To be clear: I work with Jonah, so I share his concerns.) I think jonah skimped on one big point: Mint.com as a service is a security feature.

I want to give some financial information to company X. Right now: The way that I do this is by giving that company ALL OF MY SECRET FINANCIAL INFORMATION. Being able to granularly release only a relevant fraction of my information to a third party is much better.

Sure: Giving secret information away without users' consent (a la google buzz): Bad idea. In this case: That's not the point.

I wouldn't want anyone to be able to pull data from my Mint account, but it would be infinitely useful if they could push data to it.