Recently, digital rights activist and YouTuber Louis Rossmann revoked his endorsement of privacy.com. But we think this might be a problem bigger than one provider.
Thanks. I couldnât see a clear reason from Louis Rossmannâs video for me to stop using privacy.com. Iâm glad if Iâm not missing anything.
I vaguely remember verifying my identity with privacy.com somehow because the credit based verification always fails for me everywhere, so everyone wants the ID and phone photo. Itâs good to be cautious about this since one could end up doing it way too many places, but the benefit from privacy.com of a similar service is unique and very useful large for online purchases.
There doesnât seem to be another option besides gift cards which are expensive, often not private, and can lead to losing money if it goes wrong.
Iâm not sure what I would do about persona if they asked me to verify now since Iâm not familiar with persona. The storing for years is rather standard unfortunately, at least for financial services.
At least the privacy policies Iâve seen were like this. Itâs only non-banking services like porkbun where they donât store the ID verification way too long. Maybe persona is really worse though.
have people forgotten
?
Anyways I think Persona by Palantir is enough reason to stop using them
not to mention we have alternatives now
Iâll end this statement with cash is king
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Good video.
Two questions came to mind (not sure if they are specifically on-topic)
1 - If you are already a user of privacy.com before this issue, does this change anything?
2 - does anyone know how privacy.com handles tax evasion issues with allowing customers to enter any address they want? For example it is very easy to avoid sales tax with online purches because of this.
I think something else not mentioned in this video is thatâas far as I knowâthe fintech companies using these verification services remain liable for fraud or abuse from a regulatory perspective, it doesnât absolve them of their responsibilities. Theyâre still going to have to do manual reviews in ambiguous cases, and if a verification service fucks up itâs on them, not the verification service.
These services are purely a convenience for companies to replace their compliance staff with AI, at the expense of everyone elseâs privacy.
based
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In the case of privacy.com, where they make it available for free, they might not have the staff. I know they have subscription tiers too, but they have to compete with the speed and price of the companies using these services. Itâs likely that free users are a large percentage of users as well.
I imagine that, if you could get a manual review by subscribing or paying a fee, many here would do so, but not many people would in general. I still wouldnât be opposed to this being included with a subscription, especially since the review seems to often only be needed once.
Probably true, but I am also ideologically opposed to companies providing free services at the expense of your privacy 
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This is good for those of us who use the site, but I think using privacy.com can be a net increase in privacy compared to some online companiesâ security and privacy practices.
Once there is a paid one that doesnât do this, especially if they can keep pricing low, I would be willing to start questioning it more.
When it comes to payment cards, isnât it that the privacy is between you and the one youâre buying off, and not you and the payment provider? Just that I think they all have to do KYC which is where all the usual stinkies like Palantir are involved like it or not.
I just use virtual Monzo cards but actually havenât had any need so far
I do think it is interesting that we (generally) expect some privacy companies to go as far as shutting down or withdrawing from a market, before complying with local laws or a specific legal framework.
On some level - there is more Privacy.com could do. They could, at minimum, offer alternatives to verify identity other than biometrics or their chosen vendor.
I think it is reasonable for Louis and other privacy minded individuals to have expected more privacy preserving options for a company the uses the name.
Very compelling video.
Although Iâm sure most people here know this, I think itâs always important that YouTubers and privacy advocates with global audiences remind them that Privacy.com is exclusive to the US. Some still forget to do so. If I were in the US, I would personally not use Privacy.com because I find their KYC verification too invasive. And I felt this way before Persona came along.
PRIVACY â ANONIMITY (2:57)
Agreed. As you say, privacy is having control over your data. You have control over the data you share with merchants when you use Privacy.com, but do you have control over the data you give Privacy.com? If you want to use Privacy.com, not so much.
I also wouldnât want Privacy.com to analyze the purchases I make with their VCCs to gain insight into me as a user so they can further develop their service. Because of their extensive KYC requirement, I honestly think they should change their name.
Privacy may not be the same as anonymity but as you point out, there is argument to be made that Privacy.com and Persona demand tOo much information, even if some of it is legally required.
4:22 I challenge you to find one legit legal bank or financial app thatâs not doing this stuff.
IronVest FKA Abine Blur.
Long before there was Privacy.com, there was IronVest. They are the first service I encountered that offered VCC, and they did this around a decade before Privacy.com came along. Same as Privacy.com, their VVC service was and continues to be exclusive to the US. And for a long time, even in the early years of Privacy.com, the only KYC they required was your real credit card number. They didnât ask for your ID or anything like that. Itâs only in the last 2 years that IronVest has started requiring ID, and itâs unclear to me if they are as invasive as Privacy.com currently is.
To the degree that I trust legacy banks more than fintech companies like Privacy.com, I would find out how many banks in the US offer VCCs, at what rates and under which ToCs. I would also recommend you contact IronVest to inquire about their services.
As Nate mentioned, CakePay allows you to purchase the gift cards of many merchants completely anonymously. I would also encourage users to demand that privacy companies accept anonymous payments (Monero & cash) for gift cards with no restrictions on how they can be used and that they allow them on the Proxy Store.
BANKS VS. FINTECHS
Every bank does this when you want to open an account.
That maybe so, but banks are not the same as faceless fintech companies. I can physically go to my bank to get verified, which is what I suspect most people here did, and I can also go there and speak to someone if I encounter any issues.
That being said, I recognize that increasingly businesses are becoming more faceless. Many restaurants, like McDonaldâs, require you to order food via a machine when you physically go there.
Similarly, many physical banks are downsizing their customer-facing operations. This means that when I go to the bank to complain about a specific problem, instead of meeting with someone who can investigate that problem, they will put me on the phone with someone from the related department who is God knows where.
Nevertheless, I would still rather trust my bank with my ID than a faceless fintech company. Iâm also more inclined to trust a neobank, i.e., a bank that exists exclusively online, than a company like Privacy.com.
Fintechs are more expensive (especially when theyâre not banks!)
My current VCC provider is my bank, and they are a legacy bank, i.e., a physical bank. I can create as many VCCs as I want, and there are no extra charges. That could change in the future, but in the last 5+ years Iâve been using them, it hasnât been the case. The only fee I pay is the monthly fee for my type of bank account, which is fairly small.
Companies like Halo and Privacy.comâs entire business is based on VCCs, which is likely one of the reasons why they are more expensive. They limit the number of cards you can have, and they have additional charges every time you use your cards. That can get expensive real fast!
Banks can be privacy invasive too
One of my banks requires I share my location to perform any transaction on their mobile app. This sucks and I intend to file a complaint with my local data protection agency (DPA).
Another of my banks requires a liveness check when I use their app for the first time on a new device and in other instances. This bothers me because my bank already has my fingerprints, so I donât see why they would need a liveness check.
I also donât like the fact that every time I go to my bank to buy or sell foreign currency, they need to make a photocopy of my ID when they already have a copy of my ID on their computers. Itâs truly a waste of time and paper.
- Are selfie / liveness checks verified by a real person? Or a computer?
Given how fast it takes to verify, I am guessing the latter, which, IMO, defeats the point.
- Also, how do they work when you have a twin? Are they twin-proof?
TECH VS. LAW (8:50)
I agree that not all issues can be solved with laws, but also, not all issues can be solved with tech either. We need both.
I support Carissa VĂ©lizâs stance that we should ban the monetization of personal data everywhere. I also support passing a federal privacy law in the US. But both those goals are extremely hard to achieve. They are worth fighting for, though.
PERSONAâS PRIVACY POLICY (9:13)
I have mixed feelings about using information that is no longer current, like a previous address or phone number, to verify someone. Some people might not remember that. I was once locked out of an exclusive forum that verified my identity by asking me on exactly which date I joined and the username of the person who invited me. I was lucky I had written it down, but that to me is insane, especially after many years have passed.
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ANONYMOUS PAYMENTS
It sounds like PG / @nateb agrees with some of the criticisms I have of Proton with regards to anonymous payments.
Gift Cards (11:15)
Indeed, gift cards are a great way to pay for services anonymously, especially online services, but as Nate points out, many merchants put arbitrary limitations on them, and itâs especially disappointing when those merchants are privacy companies like Proton.
Proton gift cards cannot be bought anonymously, and SimpleLogin gift cards can only be credited to an account one at a time. This means you cannot credit 2 SL gift cards on the same account, but with Tuta and Addy, you can!
Dangers of crypto (12:03)
Definitely donât put a significant portion of your wealth in crypto.
100% agreed. Unless itâs money you can afford to lose, do not leave it there.
It can get halved over night
Indeed it can! But it can also double! 
I am currently in this situation.
This doesnât mean you should leave your crypto in your wallet, but if you have to do it out of convenience and necessity like I do, you can definitely take advantages of the times your currency value increases, to anonymously top up credit to your yearly subscriptions. If they allow it that is.
Services like Tuta and Addy allow you to top up credit in advance. This means that if you currently have a yearly subscription with them, you can use your Monero to add another year of credit anonymously. Proton doesnât allow that.
This means that if you have a yearly Tuta subscription valued at âŹ36 that expires in May 2027, and you put âŹ50 in your Monero wallet in January 2026, that is currently valued at âŹ115, you can use that time-sensitive profit to add three extra years of credit to your Tuta account in advance. Same with Addy. Again, Proton doesnât permit that because they donât accept anonymous payments for gift cards.
12:27 Most cryptos are not private
Exactly. The only anonymous cryptocurrency by default is Monero, and Proton does not accept it to purchase gift cards.
12:56 Crypto is not a viable option for most people.
13:29 Cash really is the golden standard for private and anonymous transactions.
Exactly. The average person does not understand cryptocurrencies and doesnât have the skill to purchase or use them, let alone do it anonymously, which requires even more advanced knowledge. I still consider myself a newbie and have yet to do it. All the Monero I bought, a friend bought for me with their KYCâd crypto wallet.
This is why we must push Proton and other privacy companies to have gift cards and accept cash and Monero to purchase them, whether itâs directly or via trusted third parties like the Proxy Store and Cake Pay. The Proxy Store should be a priority because they also accept cash.
Cash (13:35)
13:35 Cash is isnât being tracked
This is true, but as someone with American family who have given me US cash that I kept for years, I have noticed that some banks will either not accept olDer dollar bills or buy them for less of their value, no matter how crisp they are. This doesnât make sense to me.
It means that even if your authentic dollar bills look brand new, foreign banks can tell by the serial number that they are from an old series of bills, and therefore determine that they have less value, when they would be as valid as any bill in the US.
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I just want to say that I really appreciate everyone here being able to wrap your head around nuance, paradoxes, and civil disagreement. The YouTube comments the last few videos have been flooded with people saying the dumbest things that prove that either they didnât watch the whole video or that they locked in a single statement they didnât like. (Someone said I defended Peter Thiel? Wtf?)
I really appreciate people being able to say âyeah this is kind of a tricky thingâ or even âI disagreeâ without saying that Iâm some kind of Satan-worshipping moron because you dislike my ears.
Side note: I vote @jonah set up a unique fund to buy me increasingly obnoxious earrings for every video.
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Off topic: bad actors everywhere
A hill Iâll die on: all the mainstream platforms - youtube, reddit, facebook, etc - have been overrun by legitimate bad actors who only seek to sow division & discord. I love quoting this report (yes, itâs a reddit link, haha ironic), an academic-level investigation into state-sponsored efforts in this field
I fully appreciate that those platforms are a necessary evil if you wish to disseminate valuable content to the widest possible audience, but ârealâ discussions can now only really happen in smaller, more focused community forums like PG. Shoutout to PG for existing
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Interesting Reddit thread. Obviously no one who doesnât live under a rock isnât aware thereâs some level of foreign interference but that analysis is really eye opening into how deeply orchestrated it is.
I have always said that it seemed like in 2014 someone flicked a switch and the internet that I loved so much, which brought people together from all walks of life and I always found a beautiful invention, did a u turn and started being used for hate and division and became something I grudgingly use because we all do but kind of hate. Now I know why it was 2014.
Maybe thatâs why Western governments are so keen to at least try and keep young people off social media? We all talk about conspiracy theories to control and monitor us all and Iâm sure that comes into it but maybe theyâre mostly worried about how susceptible everyone is (especially young, easily manipulated minds) to all these divide and conquer efforts. If the west is to survive, we probably all need to be weaned off social media asap.
Daft thing is, if you look into the accounts you can often tell. Someone (maybe also a troll) posed a question on Reddit yesterday about whether people in the UK want him gone as a legal, hardworking but non white citizen and there were LOADS of âyes we doâ comments. All from Redditâs random username generator. Most with hidden profile history, and those with it shown, a history of obvious trolling. But most people including myself a lot of the time, take it all at face value without thinking.
Iâm Canadian, so privacy.com was never really available for me anyways. But Iâm glad that i never bothered anyways.
Maybe thatâs why Western governments are so keen to at least try and keep young people off social media? We all talk about conspiracy theories to control and monitor us all and Iâm sure that comes into it but maybe theyâre mostly worried about how susceptible everyone is (especially young, easily manipulated minds) to all these divide and conquer efforts. If the west is to survive, we probably all need to be weaned off social media asap.
This was explicitly one of the reasons why people were worried about Tiktok. Even with adults, the idea was that the Chinese government could go hands off until a crucial moment, like a close election, and then run an update to influence public opinion just enough to get the candidate they wanted.
This seems entirely realistic to me and is also the type of thing the CIA would do in China if they could. Or even the US government in the US, depending on how it plays out.
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