If you’re in Venmo’s key demographic of millennials, you probably use the mobile payment service without thinking much about it.

But did you know that each time you do a transaction three pieces of info — your recipient’s name, the date of your transaction and the purpose of your transaction — go public?

If you’re fatigued on all the talk of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, here’s another privacy issue that’s been flying under the radar.


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Did you know that all Venmo transactions default to being publicly viewable? That’s the discovery a technology correspondent for CNBC recently made.

Turns out it’s pretty easy to limit all the unwanted sharing.

For desktop users

  • Begin by logging in to Venmo.com.
  • Navigate to ‘Settings’ -> ‘Privacy‘ and then select ‘Private’ as your preferred default privacy setting.
  • Be sure to click ‘Save Settings’ to lock in your privacy choices.

For app users

  • You’ll want to be sure you have the latest version of the app before starting.
  • Tap the ‘☰’ icon in the upper left
  • Tap ‘Settings’
  • Select ‘Privacy’
  • Select ‘Private’ as your preferred default privacy setting under ‘Default Privacy Setting.’

While you’re in there, you can also go ahead and change the default privacy setting for past payments by clicking ‘Change All to Private’ under the ‘Past Payments’ section.