Twitter Introduces 'Tip Jar' Feature Where You Can Send Good Tweeters Some Change And, Unintentionally, Your Address
Twitter, not particularly known for smooth feature rollouts, has unleashed a doozy of a problem alongside its new "Tip Jar" feature, which will allow users to send each other a little pocket change for their good tweets. The problem is that, if you're not careful, you could also send along your address.
The problem was discovered by Rachel Tobac, who noted that if you send the tip via PayPal, the receiver will see the sender's address on the receipt.
Huge heads up on PayPal Twitter Tip Jar. If you send a person a tip using PayPal, when the receiver opens up the receipt from the tip you sent, they get your address. Just tested to confirm by tipping @yashar on Twitter w/ PayPal and he did in fact get my address I tipped him. https://t.co/R4NvaXRdlZ pic.twitter.com/r8UyJpNCxu
— Rachel Tobac (@RachelTobac) May 6, 2021
Kayvon Beykpour, Twitter's product lead, chimed in on Rachel's post saying they couldn't do anything about PayPal's receipt system, but will be adding warnings about that feature.
this is a good catch, thank you. we can't control the revealing of the address on Paypal's side but we will add a warning for people giving tips via Paypal so that they are aware of this.
— Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) May 6, 2021
Tom Hunter, Senior Manager of Global Communications with PayPal, told Gizmodo that addresses are only sent along if the user says their payment is for "goods and services." It would not show up if they said their payment is for "friends and family."
When using PayPal to send and receive money, there are two options a customer can select before processing the payment on how that money is sent. “Goods and Services” is used to buy or pay for an item or service from someone and will automatically share the customer’s address with the recipient for the delivery of those goods and services. Customers can toggle within the payment flow to select “Friends and Family” which does not share the address with the recipient. This is the standard functionality of the PayPal app and we will work with Twitter closely to ensure user awareness.
Furthermore, the "Tip Jar" feature reveals the email address linked to the account, meaning if you had the Tip Jar feature and a user clicks on the icon to send you money, they will see your email address. This was discovered by Ashkan Soltani.
Warning all:
Twitter</a>'s new "Tip Jar" feature reveals the recipient's email address that's linked to their account, even when you don't send them any actual money <br><br>(I got permission from <a href="https://twitter.com/jason_kint?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">jason_kint to show his email in this video)
Thread here: https://t.co/Z6WFuXSlgO https://t.co/e8f9J58db7 pic.twitter.com/6u4Vjwkinf— ashkan soltani (@ashk4n) May 7, 2021
As seems to often be the case with Twitter, the site takes one step forward and two steps back. Yesterday's alteration of the site's automatic photo crop was heralded as terrific news for artists and content creators on the site, but the leaking of personal information via the Tip Jar function is a serious concern for users. Luckily, the feature is still in beta, so there's still time to work out the kinks.
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