Google moves into Venmo, banks’ territory with checking accounts | Hacker News Reader

Google moves into Venmo, banks’ territory with checking accounts

cnbc.com

44 pointslatchkey18 comments

“Google Pay will never sell your data to third parties or share your transaction history with the rest of Google for targeting ads,” the company said.

From what I can tell, nothing in this statement actually precludes targeting ads based on spending. If it did, they would just say that. They only preclude selling the data or sharing it with the ads team. But that was never the model to start with! This is a sleight of hand by Google to cover up what they actually do: profile users and then offer that profiling to other companies in the form of a service.

To put it more explicitly, you can say “I’ll put your ad in front of 20 year olds with an interest in skateboarding” without selling user data or even sharing profile data with the ads team. You just simply get the ads and the target market and use the data to put the ad in front of them.

And doesn’t the fact that Google says they won’t do those things proof that they know their entire business model is super shady and wouldn’t be appreciated by users if they fully understood it?

You can already send money to friends, though being confused about that is understandable. Originally, you could send payments from Google Pay, then they moved that functionality to a separate app called Google Wallet. Then they changed the name of Google Wallet to Google Pay Send and then they moved it back into Google Pay.

You know, a normal Google product history.

Google may be the last company on earth I want to handle my banking. Well, maybe I would choose it over Facebook. But seriously... no thank you.

Imagine having to contact their customer support if something goes wrong.

>“The account is a Citi product, but customers get the best of both worlds with the Google ecosystem,” he said. The “traditional banking model is evolving” and partnerships are becoming a key part of the industry’s future, Selva said.

The traditional banking system may have its flaws, but I don't like the idea of this tech partnered banking evolution.

I really dislike the way these tech companies keep trying to integrate into every aspect of people's lives.

I don't want some overarching giant company to be responsible for the management of everything in my life.

It's really starting to feel like some kind of corporate dystopian fiction sometimes.

These companies want everybody contained under their silos where every single part of their lives is integrated with one of their systems.

Everything from your health, your banking, your food, everything you buy, everything you do, everywhere you go, all carefully, tracked monitored and integrated with, Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, etc.'s insulated bubble where all your daily life exists within things provided by whichever company you happened to choose...or hell...born into.

It'll become a new right of passage for parents, bringing their precious baby into the corporate bubble they live in, just like their parents did for them.

To switch companies will become the greatest sin...

'Oh...what...you used to be an Apple person...you actually switched to google...oh...wow....'

Sorry, that's probably pretty hyperbolic, but sometimes it feels like that's where we're heading.

Getting locked out of my money because automated algorithms miscategorized some activity by my account on some completely unrelated Google product as 'spam'?

Thanks but no thanks.

Banks (in the US) are a lot more regulated than random companies. They can’t close your account willy nilly without giving you your money back.

"Chase closed my accounts and banned me and I don’t know why" https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=324148

"How to survive a Chase Shutdown" https://milestomemories.com/survive-a-chase-shutdown/

Credit is different as it’s a loan, not money that is rightfully yours. Due to that, a bank can close those accounts at any point (and still require you pay them down), but checking and savings are regulated in ways that prevent them from holding your money hostage unless a court orders them to. I can’t remember the citation, but these regulations came about over time since the Great Depression.

Oh I see you were never a WellsFargo account holder?

I still have the nonfunctional debit card from the first time they tried this.

More signs to withdraw and degoogle my life.

Photos, Gmail, time to go.

Cool. So what happens when they change the APIs on that randomly? Ugh. Currently suffering from Google Drive pain.

What could possibly go wrong with an organization with absolutely zero customer support holding your money?

This is not a good idea. What happens when google decides to disable your account because of.. reasons?

This happened earlier this year, was locked out for around an hour when I did something one of their security bots must not have liked.

Interesting... I don't think I would open an account though, seems like too much of a pain to have to move my money again in four years when google inevitably sunsets this product.

they'll change the name of the app/service every 4 months and finally deprecate it in 3 years...?

Wish them luck but I doubt Google will still give this sufficient attention in 10 years.

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