Venmo Takes Another Step Toward Privacy

As part of a larger redesign, the payment app Venmo has discontinued its public “global” feed. That means the Venmo app will no longer show you strangers’ transactions—or show strangers your transactions—all in one place. This is a big step in the right direction. But, as the redesigned app rolls out to users over the next few weeks, it’s unclear what Venmo’s defaults will be going forward. If Venmo and parent company PayPal are taking privacy seriously, the app should make privacy the default, not just an option still buried in the settings.

Currently, all transactions and friends lists on Venmo are public by default, painting a detailed picture of who you live with, where you like to hang out, who you date, and where you do business. It doesn’t take much imagination to come up with all the ways this could cause harm to real users, and the gallery of Venmo privacy horrors is well–documented at this point.

However, Venmo apparently has no plans to make transactions private by default at this point. That would squander the opportunity it has right now to finally

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