Earlier quoted context omitted.
Such a poor comment from Kelly that I almost wonder if it was intentional.
It would seem a CEO would have other, less public, tools to torpedo a deal if they wanted to, no?
Maybe not if the board was forcing him?
Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block
91–100 of 295 posts
Re: Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block
#92Whatever you think about Visa or this merger, this would be a major disappoint to Plaid's team members who thought they were in for a huge financial windfall. If that applies to anyone here, my sympathies and best of luck figuring out what's next for Plaid. Hopefully the morale hit isn't too big on the team.
If we ignore the lucky ones who where first employee at unicorn with very generously owner,,, do you really get any money as an employee when there is an acquisition !? How common is it outside Silicon Valley ?
Re: Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't wait until we have smart contracts on a privacy coin that let me invest and grow my wealth anonymously.
Anonymously is unlikely - how would the government get their taxes?
Even if the government bans XMR from exchanges, BTC to XMR atomic swaps are coming.
You can then
1. Use XMR as an anonymizing bridge to pseudonymous ETH or ADA wallets
2. Grow wealth with ETH or ADA smart contracts/decentralized finance
3. When you want to spend, transfer funds from your ETH/ADA wallets over the XMR bridge to newly generated spend wallets. (There's potential for a chain-analysis correlation attack at this point if you aren't careful with how you are withdrawing.)
---
Really, it's all a nightmare and very difficult to do it now, but I'll be damned if someone doesn't develop an app or program that does this all seamlessly in a few years.
Re: Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block
#94I’ve some friends that works there, so I’m hesitant to say this, because I’m sorry for them, but Plaid is a terrible company. Their main product scrapes financial data from unsuspecting users that simply think they’re making a bank transfer and not signing away the privacy and security of their banking, 401k and trading information. https://twitter.com/seanieb/status/1298871471645761537?s=20
They are getting sued by TD Bank for this very reason: > The bank said in the court filings that the interface "dupes" consumers into believing they are entering personal information into TD Bank's trusted platform. > "In reality, however, consumers are unwittingly giving their login credentials to the defendant, who takes the information, stores it on its servers, and uses it to mine consumers' bank records for valu…
That´s interesting, and it is an important "stick". On the other side, I know some banks are giving a "carrot" to these types of companies by providing a "portal access" that allows these companies to connect their customers with their bank accounts so that the customer can select what to share with these sites.
Of course, once those portals are enabled we enter the Facebook game: Where a lot of customers will blindly give all access to Plaid like companies, and then consumer group advocates will criticize for the amount of information that they are (still) mining from ignoring customers.
Re: Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block
#95It would have gone through had Visa's CEO not been so honest at the time of the merger announcement saying that they intended to use Plaid's data to get a leg up on their competitors. > The DOJ cited Visa CEO Al Kelly’s description of the deal as an “insurance policy” to neutralize a “threat to our important US debit business.”
Such a poor comment from Kelly that I almost wonder if it was intentional.
Maybe he wanted to tank the deal once they figured out Plaid scrapes financial portals instead of integrates with them.
Re: Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block
#96I’ve some friends that works there, so I’m hesitant to say this, because I’m sorry for them, but Plaid is a terrible company. Their main product scrapes financial data from unsuspecting users that simply think they’re making a bank transfer and not signing away the privacy and security of their banking, 401k and trading information. https://twitter.com/seanieb/status/1298871471645761537?s=20
They are getting sued by TD Bank for this very reason: > The bank said in the court filings that the interface "dupes" consumers into believing they are entering personal information into TD Bank's trusted platform. > "In reality, however, consumers are unwittingly giving their login credentials to the defendant, who takes the information, stores it on its servers, and uses it to mine consumers' bank records for valu…
It's difficult to draw a clear line between what Plaid is doing and a phishing scam.
Re: Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block
#97I’ve some friends that works there, so I’m hesitant to say this, because I’m sorry for them, but Plaid is a terrible company. Their main product scrapes financial data from unsuspecting users that simply think they’re making a bank transfer and not signing away the privacy and security of their banking, 401k and trading information. https://twitter.com/seanieb/status/1298871471645761537?s=20
They really do need an OAuth rather than save-and-forward-credentials approach to account access. Hopefully the new FedInstant platform will have improvements in this area.
That said, I personally wasn't surprised to see they have this access. It makes sense that if you give them your bank password, they will have full access to your account unless they clearly convince me otherwise.
Re: Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are getting sued by TD Bank for this very reason: > The bank said in the court filings that the interface "dupes" consumers into believing they are entering personal information into TD Bank's trusted platform. > "In reality, however, consumers are unwittingly giving their login credentials to the defendant, who takes the information, stores it on its servers, and uses it to mine consumers' bank records for valu…
It's difficult to draw a clear line between what Plaid is doing and a phishing scam.
The difference is the pinky promise that they will not do bad things with their access.
Re: Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block
#99I’ve some friends that works there, so I’m hesitant to say this, because I’m sorry for them, but Plaid is a terrible company. Their main product scrapes financial data from unsuspecting users that simply think they’re making a bank transfer and not signing away the privacy and security of their banking, 401k and trading information. https://twitter.com/seanieb/status/1298871471645761537?s=20
They are getting sued by TD Bank for this very reason: > The bank said in the court filings that the interface "dupes" consumers into believing they are entering personal information into TD Bank's trusted platform. > "In reality, however, consumers are unwittingly giving their login credentials to the defendant, who takes the information, stores it on its servers, and uses it to mine consumers' bank records for valu…
> Also, giving your credentials to any third party, including Plaid, voids the warranty at many financial institutions. If your account gets hacked and your money stolen, you may find out that the zero liability policy no longer applies to you.
The trouble is, giving someone your account number also makes it not the bank's problem what they do with that number, even if it was clearly unauthorized by you. There's no good way to do ACH transfers without a high degree of trust in the recipient.
Re: Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's difficult to draw a clear line between what Plaid is doing and a phishing scam.
The difference is the pinky promise that they will not do bad things with their access.
They are selling the data to marketing companies to build a dossier on you, and this could be used for any number of purposes once it is in the hands of data brokers.
They're tricking people into handing over the information, and then they're using it for purposes that may harm the victim, so like I said, it's hard to draw a line.