Who Has The Most Data?

PayPal runs a tight ship on security. Even as a first-time buyer, they have all sorts of information about you. They can access records of other sites you have went to and find your e-mail records too, but not for a bad purpose; they judge whether you are a criminal or not.

People leave all sorts of information online, and much of it is harmless. Imagine it as a trail of breadcrumbs; this is what companies use to determine whether you are a potential criminal or not. PayPal tracks these little signs all the way back to the source. Their philosophy is that even safety conscious people leave a small trail while surfing the web, and only criminals are completely untraceable.

PayPal asserts that the secret to their success is their rigorous security measures. Even before they were purchased by Ebay, they had a leg up over the competition by allowing consumers to purchase items and merchandise by credit card. Most companies would not allow this due to the risk of an interception of the transaction, or just a simple inherent fear of trusting an anonymous person over the web with this sensitive information. They have always been more wary of sellers than buyers though, because it would be easy for a vendor to get their money and take their merchandise and skip town, as is the cliché of Internet scammers.

PayPal believes that the Internet, contrary to proper belief, actually reduces the threat of criminals. They justify their statement with a insightful statement; these criminals leave footprints wherever they go. If they go out of their way not to leave tracks, then they will be even easier to locate.

When a new customer signs up, they are quickly judged. Their IP address is scanned to make sure it matches with their location, so no funny business occurs when something is ordered and shipped. PayPal also makes some information necessary to sign up with them, and checks it to make sure the user is lying or trying to pull a fast one. They can also run credit card numbers and see if the user uses Ebay or any other shopping websites, and can check their history there as well. They quickly identify after a few transactions whether you are an honest consumer or a bad apple.

PayPal is enhancing its security all of the time too; they know as well as anyone that as technology becomes more advanced, people will try and use it for illicit means. They can run search engine checks on someone’s name, and can pick up on people’s frequently used addresses to make sure they are legitimate. Sometimes they even buy information from other record keeping companies for data on users they cannot find anything on.

PayPal has laid down the law of the land: the more data you have, the safer and more successful you’ll be.

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