IANAL and have no affiliations to Plaid. My takeaway from the article and [0] is that Plaid violated privacy laws because they provided insufficient disclosure with respect to the collected data, not that they are selling data to third parties.
(IANAL either) I understand and agree that part of the issue is that they, allegedly, underhandedly collected this data. My question is focused around the potential selling of that data, which took place according to the lawsuit and was likely the reason to collect the data.
From the article you linked:
> 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.
> My question is focused around the potential selling of that data, which took place according to the lawsuit and was likely the reason to collect the data.
They would kind of have to be idiots to do so, to be quite frank.
Up until like a year ago, their baseline product was $500 / mo plus $x / user after 100 users (iirc) with a 12 month contract.
Plaid has basically no competition, is worth billions and was almost acquired if not for an anti-trust suit.
I am not sure how Plaid or its founders would benefit financially by betraying the trust of their customers and their customers' customers by getting a few cents per record out of it.
> 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.
People's hatred / mistrust of Plaid stems for a misunderstanding of what Plaid is.
Yes, Plaid does """sell""" that information... to the app that you willfully gave permission to, information like cash flow, debt, types of debt, etc.
Oh, also, if people are so terrified of Plaid, they should write to the Congresspeople and ask them to write a bill to force banks to write & provide REST APIs. The lack of banking APIs is the only reason Plaid exists and has to resort to scraping or storing banking information.
> Oh, also, if people are so terrified of Plaid, they should write to the Congresspeople and ask them to write a bill to force banks to write & provide REST APIs.
Why REST? Yes, I’d certainly rather call rest APIs than, say SOAP APIs, but do really want Congress specifying that much technical detail?
I haven't used Plaid and I haven't read the litigation, but it seems the following scenario may have happened:
1) Users use Plaid to buy/sell with a variety of vendors and banks
2) Vendors and banks were aware that specific users were buying /selling because they were buying/selling their products
3) Users consented to #2 because they were buying/selling their products
4) Plaid provided aggregated reports that said "5% of your customers also shopped on Amazon"
1/ Yes, there are companies like Tata and Wipro who game the system to hire software developers at below market rate. This is absolutely a problem that should be addressed. Outright banning H-1B does solve the problem, but it is nowhere near optimal. For many skilled talents, H-1B is the only path to work in the U.S. Banning H-1B is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
2/ No, there is no systemic difference in compensation for non-U.S. citizens at FAANG and equivalent. Compensation packages are formulaic. No one gets +/- X% just because they are a citizen or immigrant. If Google one day decides to pay H-1B 20% lower, they would lose out on a ton of qualified candidates to, say, Facebook. It'd require the entire conglomerate of FAANG, and whom they consider "peer" companies, to agree to suppress compensation for this to work [1]. It would also require everyone involved in the hiring process, many of whom were immigrants, to be onboard. I simple don't believe companies who compete for top talents would find this tradeoff worth it. I might just be living in a bubble, and am willing to be proven wrong. Just show me the data.
3/ Many successful companies are founded or led by immigrants who now happily call the U.S. their home. These are success stories that the country should celebrate, not chastise. You might think that Larry Page could've founded Google without Sergey Brin. You might be right, or wrong. The fact is we only have reality to observe. We don't have counterfactuals to compare against.
[1] I know about the Steve Jobs no-poach email. That was also 13 years ago.
> No one gets +/- X% just because they are a citizen or immigrant.
It's true. People get +X% because they negotiate. I believe citizens/LPRs have much stronger negotiation position: they can apply to companies, which do not consider H1B and they can walk away from any offer without catastrophic consequences even if they are between jobs so they can do "give me a raise or I walk" move at any time and not just when they have a next job lined up. I do not even mention supply and demand effects on the compensation for everyone here because it seems to be a very controversial concept.
> Many successful companies are founded or led by immigrants who now happily call the U.S. their home.
Can you give an example of such a company founded by somebody on one of the visas being discussed here?
I'd like to echo similar feedback. After I dropped gmail and went to fastmail i noticed it to be MUCH faster. gmail is my primary personal account. I really appreciated taking control of e-mail again.
i'm happily paying for e-mail and tend to think putting money down ensures I keep myself honest and maintain a workflow. Now I only save e-mails that are important to me, instead of archiving everything.
One of the nicest things about Gmail is to send myself an email with info or an attachment that I can't think of anywhere logical to put it so I'll find it again. Their search makes it the best filing system, a no-file filing system.
First, do a one-time import from Gmail. Fastmail has an import tool that does this over OAuth. Took me ~45 minutes to import ~50,000 emails.
Next, setup IMAP and SMTP on Fastmail for your Gmail account. This way, you can continue to receive and reply to emails sent to Gmail, using Fastmail as the client. When replying to an email, Fastmail defaults to the right sender (identity) based on whom the email is sent to (abc@fastmail.com or abc@gmail.com).
An alternative is to setup email forwarding in Gmail, so you get a copy of emails sent to your old address.
If you don't have a custom domain, I highly recommend getting one and use that going forward. There might come a day when you want to migrate off Fastmail. With a custom domain, you just need to update the MX records.
The author explained this (quoted below). Even though FB doesn't control Libra (protocol), they do own Calibra (digital wallet). If Libra takes off, Calibra stands a good chance of becoming the default way of transacting in Libra. FB then becomes the de facto leader and holds outsized influence over the direction of the project/industry, much like Gmail/email, Chrome/web and Google/web search.
> And this is when this bet would pay off for Facebook (and the second point I missed in my earlier analysis): the implication that digital currencies will do for money what the Internet did for information is that the very long-term trend will be towards centralization around Aggregators. When there is no friction, control shifts from gatekeepers controlling supply to Aggregators controlling demand. To that end, by pioneering Libra, building what will almost certainly be the first wallet for the currency, and bringing to bear its unmatched network for facilitating payments, Facebook is betting it will offer the best experience for digital currency flows, giving it power not by controlling Libra but rather by controlling the most users of Libra.
Edit: Update [0] to source
[0] https://newmedialaw.proskauer.com/2021/05/11/plaid-federal-e...