PayPal opted in users to share their data.

Einloggen
Herunterscrollen und unten auf der Seite den Link „Datenschutz“ anklicken
dann bei Datenschutz festlegen den Link „Datenschutzeinstellungen“ anklicken
dann das Feld „Interessenbasierte Werbung“ anklicken
auf jeden der beiden Einträge klicken und den Schalter jeweils auf „aus“ schalten

. Translated from the above:

Log in
Scroll down and click on the “Privacy” link at the bottom of the page
then click on the "Privacy settings" link under Data & Privacy
then click on the “Interest-based advertising” (Personalized shopping) field
click on each of the two entries and set the switch to “off” in each case

I don't see this option. Is it only in specific countries?
- Did you follow the tutorial I posted? If so, the English-translated part may not have the right terminology. I followed the instructions on the linked website: https://www.404media.co/paypal-personalized-shopping-opt-out/. I suppose, this is appliccable worldwide.
I'm in the EU, and both the fields are off already.
- Also EU. Both options were enabled.
Thanks

I deleted when I heard they were levying an inactivity fee in Canada.

I don't live in Canada, but that was a shit move.

Ah yes, charging money for not using a service, makes perfect sense! /s
From what that article says, this fee is only charged to a PayPal balance. I have no clue who's keeping a balance in a PayPal account, but it's not like they're going to charge someone's payment methods.
Not defending them, I just find it surprising that they have any customers this could even apply to.

I left like a decade ago when they asked me in a chat to verify my identity by answering a question asking what my first car purchase was. I've never given then my SSN or that kind of financial details, so the fact they had these questions and details about me terrified me at the time and I immediately requested to delete and close everything with them. Haven't used PayPal again since then.

What you experienced is a verification service provided by credit reporting agencies and has nothing to do with PayPal. I wouldn’t be concerned that PayPal has this information, because they don’t. There are probably better reasons to be concerned and to not use PayPal.

How do you do online shopping then? Most websites offer Paypal as a payment method, among credit cards. Or do you pay with a credit card?
- Not the same person, but I do a credit card. It's a lot easier to figure out a dispute with my card holder over PayPal. Plus I can cancel my credit card instantly instead of risking my personal information getting leaked as PayPal has done before. And if my PayPal got hacked they'd have access to more than just my credit card number.
- Is it really that unusual to pay online with a debit/credit card? I would consider that the standard way and PayPal an option sometimes available.
- I haven't used PayPal in ages, I only use Privacy cards.
- Spin up a card using a service like Privacy and use that. I make one-time use cards with it all the time.

They opted me in. What a shock. I may never recover from the surprise.

Not seeing anything about this in the settings for PayPal.ca account. Guess I'll keep checking to see if they sneak it in at a later date for us Canucks.

I went looking and didn't see anything in my account either. Now does that mean they aren't doing it in Canada? Or are they not giving us a choice to opt out?

Appreciate the news, I don't follow the million apps I'm forced to use closely so this is a great help to me. I guess I gotta use my venmo on patreon now.

Venmo is owned by Paypal.

I hear a class action lawsuit coming!

Lawsuit wins
Lawyers get paid millions
Customers affected get maybe $9, for lower than their data was sold for
PayPal walks away with it as the price of doing business, no one involved is jailed.
- Which is why there should be legal mechanisms to place legal responsibility for decisions like this personally on those in leadership positions when they're being made, even if those people no longer hold those positions.
  You bet your ass the chucklefucks who came up with this little stunt would've thought twice about it if they knew that there was a decent chance they'd go to prison for it.
  Also gotta make this shit sting the shareholders too: make the company pay the victims not only the estimated value of their data but also a portion of all profits made while a policy like this is in effect. Since there's no easy way to tell how much money was made off their data, unless the company has the numbers, let's say half.
  Suddenly the quarterly report's got a nice repayment shaped dent in its side and all the sudden the shareholders care about following the law and respecting the rights of customers.

Damn. I'm a European citizen, I thought I'm save from opt-out bullshit.

Flush that turd.

I got locked out my seldom-used PayPal account a few years ago. They decided to arbitrarily remove Google Voice as an SMS 2FA option (I want to say TOTP wasn’t supported when I signed up). I went to find out who to contact about authentication issues, but support, chicken-&-egg-style, requires authentication—even for auth issues—with no support@ email. I used the worst-case-scenario support option of Twitter but that support team banned me for messaging them about auth. Since I couldn’t get back into my account + the sheer incompetence of the support system, I never used & refused to use PayPal ever since. I am happy that my country prefers cash transactions & I can’t believe in the past I used a major bank credit card + major corp digital payment option for almost all purchases. Long live cash (& Monero/Zcash).

How does one opt out?

Without reading, my guess is something convoluted like sending physical mail under a certain weight or sending an email within a certain date that has already passed. Imma go read it really quick and let you know how accurate I was.
Edit: Apparently you can just do it in the settings. But they will still do it "as necessary for transactions." Which means they'll probably still do it and just stretch what "necessary" means as far as they take it. Which is equally as shitty.
Check the newer comments, there may be a setting.