Should You Subscribe to Facebook Pay?
Facebook launched Facebook Pay, a payment system for Facebook and Messenger. It will initially launch for “fundraising, in-game purchases, event tickets, personal Messenger payments, and purchases from selected pages and businesses on the Facebook Marketplace,” the company said in a statement . He then plans to expand it to Instagram and WhatsApp. In theory, you should be able to use Facebook Pay to shop in your daily life, not just in the ever-expanding Facebook ecosystem.
First, let’s go over the basics of using this feature. To set up Facebook Pay on Facebook or Messenger, go to settings and add a payment method – you can choose a credit or debit card, or link your PayPal account. You can choose to PIN or enable biometric identification (such as fingerprint or face) for added security beyond Facebook Pay account encryption and fraud monitoring. Facebook claims it does not store this biometric information.
A few more details about security :
- You choose where to set up Facebook Pay – it won’t automatically turn on for all apps where it’s available.
- Your transactions are not uploaded to your profile or feed unless you do this yourself.
- Your card and bank information will not be used to influence the ads you see, although your purchases may be used.
Does Facebook warn it is safe? a question in its announcement, indicating that it has been processing donations since 2007 and has operated its own fundraising platform since 2015. But just last month, almost all of its payment partners pulled out of the Libra cryptocurrency project . PayPal dropped out first; then Mastercard, Visa, eBay and Stripe left amid concerns from US regulators that Libra could be used to launder money, among other nefarious opportunities.
But while Facebook is trying to take over the universe without getting a bank charter, there are privacy concerns that apply to users other than those thinking of exchanging money through the platform. Just yesterday, a glitch was discovered that was allowing the Facebook iOS app to turn on your phone’s camera in the background while you were using Facebook. Facebook quickly acknowledged the error and proceeded to fix it, but we recommended that users turn off Facebook camera access for now.
Facebook Pay seems convenient for heavy users of social media and communications, but the company doubts too much about the privacy of its users. Don’t forget that just a year ago, Facebook admitted that hackers managed to steal access tokens and hijack people’s accounts, affecting 50 million accounts .
You can of course use Facebook’s new payment method. But instead, you can use one of at least half a dozen other major payment apps that aren’t tied to Mark Zuckerburg’s plan of world domination. Facebook may be the largest social network in the world, but the bigger the better – or, in this case, the safer.