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Comment by wintermutestwin | Hacker News Reader

The whole reason why I use paypal for some purchases is to keep the vendor from knowing my PII.

Paypal Enshitification level = 11

Is privacy.com an option for you? Disposable virtual payment card numbers and whatnot.

Strongly recommend not using privacy.com. It's full of dark patterns and has lots of crazy behaviors like randomly locking your account and demanding good old picture of you with photo ID. For a privacy focused service, this is hilarious.

This has not been my experience using it for years. You should expect KYC (know your customer) processes and requirements for any financial service provider with a US nexus or interconnection to US financial infrastructure.

If you’re attempting to be completely anonymous with regards to value transfer, crypto and cash are your only potential options. The privacy, in this use case, is from other parties between you and the merchant (and including the merchant, if you’re not providing PI).

I couldn't even sign up and create a virtual card. The reason? "An error has occurred, please contact support or try again later".

Yeah I don't think so, you had one job privacy.com

Doesn't the vendor get your name and address when paying through PayPal?

S/he probably meant payment information as credit card number, cvv etc. And there was no way before this for merchant X to know what Alice or Bob bought from merchant Y.

And E-Mail and phone number afair.

PayPal already shares enough contact info for the purpose of shipping when I order physical goods.

This new sharing appears to consist of marketing data on items you shop for, not necessarily PII, unless you consider your inseam to be classified top secret.

What PayPal lists in the Privacy Policy for the US is only an example. I interpreted the change as “PayPal collects any number of information on you. Gives you seemingly innocuous data such as inseam. But in reality, we may collect political affiliation, contacts, salary information, and share that with retailers that want our data”

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