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Plaid settled $58M lawsuit over alleged consumer data sharing

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Re: Plaid settled $58M lawsuit over alleged consumer data sharing

#81

Post by jeandenis »

akarma wrote: post #58
jeandenis wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, CTO from Plaid here. We don’t, and have not, sold data. https://plaid.com/legal/#consumer-support As someone who has overseen our consumer privacy team over the past few years building out products like Plaid Link and Plaid Portal, I can attest this is a foremost priority for the company. FWIIW, I don’t agree with the allegations, and you can read our POV on this blog post. https://plaid.com/blog/plaids-commitme…

Thank you for the response — I know you're likely very restricted in what you can say here, but: You just settled a claim that you sold customer transaction histories, and from the article linked, the plaintiffs' lawyers claim that you have agreed to implement meaningful business practice changes to remediate these issues. (1) If you've never sold transaction histories, why settle a lawsuit alleging that you sold tra…

You’re right that I can’t write much (legal, PR team say hello).

The bottom line point is, we don’t sell data and that’s not the main allegation. The main allegation is that people didn’t understand that we were part of the flow of connecting banks to apps. We disagree.

Before 2017, there was a whitelabel experience of Plaid that didn’t say “Plaid”, didn’t have the Plaid logo, etc. We still stand by our belief that our disclosures at the time were more than adequate. But it’s not something we want to have protracted litigation around.

The reality is that our experience today is vastly different (and has been for a while). As for “what meaningful business practice changes could you be making if there's no issue to begin with.” Like most companies, we’re always making improvements to our experience -- today we have a consent pane that makes our role clear, a portal for people to manage their data, etc.

Re: Plaid settled $58M lawsuit over alleged consumer data sharing

#82

Post by jeandenis »

wheaties wrote: post #56
jeandenis wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, CTO from Plaid here. We don’t, and have not, sold data. https://plaid.com/legal/#consumer-support As someone who has overseen our consumer privacy team over the past few years building out products like Plaid Link and Plaid Portal, I can attest this is a foremost priority for the company. FWIIW, I don’t agree with the allegations, and you can read our POV on this blog post. https://plaid.com/blog/plaids-commitme…

I don't have the time to read and research exactly what happened. I see you settled for a large sum. Thus, I don't believe you. We've all been burned by companies that claim one thing and do the exact opposite. It doesn't matter if legally they are stating things accurately. What matters is how we, a mere human, would believe the plain English phrases used to be construed. Hope you have success and I have no ill will…

I understand your point (and yes we are all mere humans who like plain language).

Your data goes from your bank to the app that you authorized, via Plaid. It is not sold to anybody.

Re: Plaid settled $58M lawsuit over alleged consumer data sharing

#83

Post by jeandenis »

OnlineGladiator wrote: post #57
jeandenis wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, CTO from Plaid here. We don’t, and have not, sold data. https://plaid.com/legal/#consumer-support As someone who has overseen our consumer privacy team over the past few years building out products like Plaid Link and Plaid Portal, I can attest this is a foremost priority for the company. FWIIW, I don’t agree with the allegations, and you can read our POV on this blog post. https://plaid.com/blog/plaids-commitme…

This really sounds like you're just doubling down without really responding to anything directly. You say you disagree with the allegations - why do you disagree with them? I understand you probably can't speak to this for legal reasons, but this vague rebuttal is worse than saying nothing at all. It just sounds like typical corporate PR, which makes me automatically assume you're lying. I don't know the details of t…

I wrote a comment above on the main allegation which hopefully answers your question. It's not about selling data.

Re: Plaid settled $58M lawsuit over alleged consumer data sharing

#84

Post by drewmol »

ve55 wrote: post #2

It is particularly sad how common scenarios this are for users, especially in the US. I have known how terrible applications like Plaid (and alternatives) were, but at various points have been required to use them to do something like pay my rent (this is also a very common theme in my life: I strongly dislike a certain company or app, but find myself required to use them regardless, even knowing that my usage and in…

> Giving my full credentials and my security question answer in plaintext

FWIW: I've resorted to using a formula to derive my security question answers from the real answer (kept secret) and the text of the question itself. This seems to help mitigate the damage of the q's and a's getting exposed.

Re: Plaid settled $58M lawsuit over alleged consumer data sharing

#85

Post by jjulius »

mikeiz404 wrote: post #76
jeandenis wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, CTO from Plaid here. We don’t, and have not, sold data. https://plaid.com/legal/#consumer-support As someone who has overseen our consumer privacy team over the past few years building out products like Plaid Link and Plaid Portal, I can attest this is a foremost priority for the company. FWIIW, I don’t agree with the allegations, and you can read our POV on this blog post. https://plaid.com/blog/plaids-commitme…

I’m guessing this is the relevant section stating that summarized anonymized data is shared. We may collect, use, and share End User Information in an aggregated, de-identified, or anonymized manner (that does not identify you personally) for any purpose permitted under applicable law. This includes creating or using aggregated, de-identified, or anonymized data based on the collected information to develop new servi…

>We do not... rent personal information that we collect.

Forgive my ignorance here, but how exactly would one "rent" personal information?

Re: Plaid settled $58M lawsuit over alleged consumer data sharing

#86

Post by briffle »

jeandenis wrote: post #59
meowtimemania wrote: post #45

I’ve used Plaid to login to my bank account. How do I delete all my data from Plaid??

(Plaid CTO here) You can use the Plaid Portal ( https://my.plaid.com ) to view what types of data are being shared, to revoke access (to both the apps and Plaid) and delete data stored in Plaid’s systems. You can also put a data deletion request through support. Not as per my comment above that we don’t, and have not, sold data. https://plaid.com/legal/#consumer-support

I have tried to login to this site, registered my phone number, and it says it can't find any accounts of mine. yet I know YNAB uses plaid as its backend, and has links to my banks, credit card companies, and even my mortgage.

Is this a bug, or are those of use that use certain 3rd parties not able to see our data?

Re: Plaid settled $58M lawsuit over alleged consumer data sharing

#87

Post by vmception »

The worst thing about Plaid is the alternatives to Plaid that I've never heard of

There is no secure way to "connect your bank account" in an app. No matter how fancy it looks, or what logo they put up, you are really just giving your username and password to a random person. A random person who may or may not be malicious, but is absolutely a giant target for malicious people.

As for the rebuttals, be nice if there was a way for users to to verify.

Re: Plaid settled $58M lawsuit over alleged consumer data sharing

#88

Post by akarma »

jeandenis wrote: post #81
akarma wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the response — I know you're likely very restricted in what you can say here, but: You just settled a claim that you sold customer transaction histories, and from the article linked, the plaintiffs' lawyers claim that you have agreed to implement meaningful business practice changes to remediate these issues. (1) If you've never sold transaction histories, why settle a lawsuit alleging that you sold tra…

You’re right that I can’t write much (legal, PR team say hello). The bottom line point is, we don’t sell data and that’s not the main allegation. The main allegation is that people didn’t understand that we were part of the flow of connecting banks to apps. We disagree. Before 2017, there was a whitelabel experience of Plaid that didn’t say “Plaid”, didn’t have the Plaid logo, etc. We still stand by our belief that o…

> Plaid would retain access to their credentials and use them to mine, aggregate and then sell users’ financial transaction data to third parties (including to the fintech apps that use its services) for purposes unrelated to the plaintiffs’ use of the fintech payment apps. [1]

This is allegedly from the lawsuit. I can see your perspective — that it made sense to settle because of the privacy accusation, but you still deny the other accusations. I understand that perspective, though as I'm sure you can understand, it's hard to know for sure based on the allegations and the settlement.

[1] https://newmedialaw.proskauer.com/2021/05/11/plaid-federal-e...

Re: Plaid settled $58M lawsuit over alleged consumer data sharing

#89

Post by jsonne »

newfonewhodis wrote: post #77
wheaties wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have the time to read and research exactly what happened. I see you settled for a large sum. Thus, I don't believe you. We've all been burned by companies that claim one thing and do the exact opposite. It doesn't matter if legally they are stating things accurately. What matters is how we, a mere human, would believe the plain English phrases used to be construed. Hope you have success and I have no ill will…

No company would settle for such a large sum unless they were guilty or afraid of going through discovery.

That's just not at all true. If you've ever worked in / around law you'd understand how it's less about right and wrong and more about risk management. Non guilty parties settle all the time. (I have no idea if that is true in this case or not) but simply the idea that they settled for $$$ amount means they're guilty is just false.

Re: Plaid settled $58M lawsuit over alleged consumer data sharing

#90

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

newfonewhodis wrote: post #77
wheaties wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have the time to read and research exactly what happened. I see you settled for a large sum. Thus, I don't believe you. We've all been burned by companies that claim one thing and do the exact opposite. It doesn't matter if legally they are stating things accurately. What matters is how we, a mere human, would believe the plain English phrases used to be construed. Hope you have success and I have no ill will…

No company would settle for such a large sum unless they were guilty or afraid of going through discovery.

How much did they settle for? I don't see that in the article. Just because they were sued for $58M doesn't mean that the settlement amount was anywhere near that!
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