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Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block

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Re: Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block

#101

Post by novok »

cameldrv wrote: post #100
smnrchrds wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Dont worry, visa, amex and MasterCard already do it directly

Re: Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block

#102

Post by morpheuskafka »

xtracto wrote: post #94
smnrchrds wrote: post #82

Earlier 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…

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 blindl…

I think BofA does this, which I like. When I linked my account to Robinhood through Plaid, it asked for 2FA (text or phone call, BofA doesn't support TOTP codes) and verified in, then asked me to select which accounts to grant access to. Since it doesn't need the 2FA subsequently, it must be doing some kind of OAuth style authentication when it passes that token to the bank and then gets a long-term access token for that specific account.

From an HTTPS perspective this is still pretty concerning though. AFAIK browsers would block the Plaid widget if someone tried to load it insecurely and the page was HTTPS (what users have been trained to look for). But without going into devtools there is no easy way to verify that the widget is actually a real Plaid widget, thus POSTing your password directly to their server and not the merchant's, and no way at all to verify that they have such a partnership with your bank sanctioning them to collect your password.

Re: Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block

#103

Post by judge2020 »

morpheuskafka wrote: post #99
smnrchrds wrote: post #82

Earlier 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…

> 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 g…

Yeah, banks could have done oauth2 years ago but it never happened.

Re: Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block

#104

Post by dmix »

novok wrote: post #101
cameldrv wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Dont worry, visa, amex and MasterCard already do it directly

Doing it on purpose vs via black/grey market trickery is often treated as separate matters. Even if the legal mode is still full of moral issues that society has yet to fully confront.

Phishing people's bank credentials has been fully established as a computer crime (not even just bad within civil law).

Re: Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block

#105

Post by judge2020 »

morpheuskafka wrote: post #97
seanieb wrote: post #75

I’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.

> FedInstant

for the uninitiated:

https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow/index....

https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow/what-i...

Re: Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block

#106

Post by lamp_book »

seanieb wrote: post #75

I’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

Yes, awhile back my bank account was decoupled from Venmo for reasons unknown. I unwittingly used Plaid to sign into my bank account instead of the usual wait a couple days procedure. No indication whatsoever - only found out because I saw an article, probably on here, about this company and their basically fraudulent practices.

Re: Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block

#107

Post by bob33212 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #28
jamestimmins wrote: post #5

Whatever 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.

This comment strikes a nerve with me - perhaps because it's "saying the quiet part loud". I thought the typical goal of hackers and startups was to "change the world" and "make a difference". How does selling to Visa accomplish those things? Isn't expressing sympathy with Plaid's staff for not getting a payout effectively saying "sorry that you might actually have to deliver on the lofty promises this time"? It's als…

It is probably 99% true. You can occasionally find a company that is proud that they made their users happy. Notch with Minecraft might be an example of that.

If you listen to VCs talk it is 100% about exit price.

Re: Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block

#108

Post by [deleted] »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #38
AlexandrB wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment strikes a nerve with me - perhaps because it's "saying the quiet part loud". I thought the typical goal of hackers and startups was to "change the world" and "make a difference". How does selling to Visa accomplish those things? Isn't expressing sympathy with Plaid's staff for not getting a payout effectively saying "sorry that you might actually have to deliver on the lofty promises this time"? It's als…

The rank-and-file employees that work for companies like this have other goals, like buying houses and saving for retirement, it's not a single dimension. Yes, they want to help the world but not at the expense of themselves and their own financial future.

[deleted]

Re: Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block

#109

Post by supernova87a »

Grimm1 wrote: post #43
supernova87a wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, maybe it isn't a "windfall" to someone who lives in the tech world and comes to expect such good fortune and thinks their effort should be rewarded in an outsized way. I'm sure we think it's deserved in a relative sense. But it is most definitely a windfall to the rest of the world (even the rest of the country), who work equally hard, under worse conditions, for their entire lives and cannot even hope to earn…

It's almost like startups have non technical workers that also have an equity stake in the companies they work for. This comment strikes me as almost entirely out of touch. No one expects these results, most people never see a startup they work for successfully exit let alone to the tune of billions. "Being in the right place at the right time" sure it's partly that but if you think you're getting there without some…

Everyone works hard, and yes some work harder than others. And no one is saying that tech workers randomly won the lottery and should shut up and just be grateful.

But to imagine that suddenly having the fruits of your labor yield 10-100x the wealth that others in life can ever hope to produce, and think that it's just your hard work and not a function of having been blessed both with good talents and an environment in which your value can be exploited -- is sheer arrogance not to acknowledge that. Or be offended that someone points it out. What does being on HN have to do with keeping a sense of reality? We need to create a protective bubble of thought that doesn't offend millionaires?

As Warren Buffett has said, "I was born with a talent for capital allocation. If I had been born in rural Africa, my talents might never have given me the wealth I have today. I would not be so different from my secretary. Our positions might even be reversed. I thank America for that difference."

Maybe the word windfall triggers you in a way that suggests it should be taken away and you didn't "deserve it". No one said that. Yet also, everyone in such a fortunate position tends to grow to think they deserve it fully as a result of their talents and work. When in fact an objective person should see how much the factors have aligned to give you this gift.

Just because you read HN doesn't mean you are exempted from realizing how lucky you are. We're not that much of a bubble I hope.

Re: Visa and Plaid Abandon Merger After Antitrust Division’s Suit to Block

#110

Post by TeMPOraL »

jamestimmins wrote: post #46
AlexandrB wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment strikes a nerve with me - perhaps because it's "saying the quiet part loud". I thought the typical goal of hackers and startups was to "change the world" and "make a difference". How does selling to Visa accomplish those things? Isn't expressing sympathy with Plaid's staff for not getting a payout effectively saying "sorry that you might actually have to deliver on the lofty promises this time"? It's als…

This makes it sound like something dirty. Tech workers want to buy homes and go on vacations just like everyone else. That's a good thing. They had an opportunity to make a lot of money making banking services easier for everyone; that's awesome and should be encouraged.

It's dirty when you couple it with the usual startup BS about changing the world, where the startup was created from day one with an exit in sight.
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