I went to a cafe in Amsterdam which turned out to not only be cashless, but their payment processor was “Zettle”. Zettle is owned by #PayPal (who shares customer data with over 600 corporations).

So my question is, apart from the expected privacy consequence of your bank & the recipient’s bank recording your transaction, what does Paypal walk away with? Paypal is a data-abusing US-based company. But OTOH the shop is in a #GDPR region. Does the GDPR give any protection in this case?

IIUC, customers consent by default to their data being processed by the merchant & whoever the merchant hires (Paypal), and from there whoever paypal shares with & on down the endless chain. The only notable GDPR protection I can think of is that the data must remain in the EU. So the transaction data cannot be sent to Paypal’s servers in the USA – correct?

BTW, I asked the owner why he trusts Zettle & also why he does not accept cash. He conceded right away that he didn’t like it either. He said he’s cashless for security and that when he looked at a number of electronic payment systems, Zettle was the cheapest. For me, “cheapest” is a red flag. It’s probably cheap because the data is probably being monetized.

Concrete question: if an American feeds a US-issued credit card into a #Zettle terminal to buy a creme-filled artery-hardening pastry in Amsterdam, is there anything to stop Paypal from doing the processing on the US-side of the transaction before selling that info to a US health insurance company?

  • @JadenSmith@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1•7 months ago

    Thank you for this post. I hope someone can provide an actual answer, however I’m intrigued since I’m planning a trip to Amsterdam some time soon.

    Did you find this Zettle business in many coffeeshops, or just the odd few?
    Did you go through with it? Was the experience itself seamless?

    • @activistPnkOPEnglish
      1•7 months ago

      I’ve not been in a coffee shop in a long time, but I would be shocked if a coffee shop were cashless. I would hope a cashless coffee shop would struggle to find enough customers to be so reckless.

      I use cash for everything I can, generally. And I tend to boycott the cashless shops. But in the case at hand (at a cafe), I tapped my card & it was seamless. If I were to make a habit of visiting that place, I would bring exact change and insist on paying cash or I’d walk. Staff at some cashless shops will pay for you with their own card if you don’t need change.