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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday July 09 2019, @12:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the never-give-up-the-data dept.

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

Way back in December 2018, we reported that Google was building a creepy profile of everything people purchase by scanning their emails in Gmail. In that report, we covered ways to delete this purchase history which included deleting the order data directly from your Gmail inbox. Now a new report is claiming that deleting emails doesn't work and there's actually no way to delete this Google purchase history.

The report from CNBC's Todd Haselton says that he deleted 10 years worth of emails from his Gmail inbox in order to clear his Google purchase history. However, three weeks after deleting all the email, his purchase history is still there. He adds that he can't delete anything from this list of purchases and he can't stop Google adding his recent purchases to this list.

Google says that unlinking your subscriptions and changing the activity settings for other Google services can reduce the purchase history data that's collected. However, it doesn't provide any specific examples of which subscription settings or activity settings to change in order to stop this purchase data being collected.

Additionally, since Google's recommendation of deleting purchase receipts from your Gmail inbox doesn't appear to work, these other recommendations may also do little to prevent purchase data from being collected.

Source: https://reclaimthenet.org/google-gmail-purchase-history-cannot-be-deleted/


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  • (Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Tuesday July 09 2019, @12:38PM (1 child)

    by pkrasimirov (3358) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 09 2019, @12:38PM (#864956)

    When a girl buys a vibrator, its seen as a bit of naughty fun. BUT when a guy orders a 240 Volt FuckMaster Pro 5000 blowup latex doll with 6 speed pulsating vagina, elasticized anus with non-drip semen collection tray, together with optional built in realistic orgasm scream surround sound system, hes called a pervert.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/2stqf3/when_a_guy_orders_a_240_volt_fuckmaster_pro_5000/ [reddit.com]

    • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @02:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @02:52PM (#864993)

      That's when you use your wifes account to order it, and don't forget to leave a colorful review.

  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 09 2019, @12:43PM (12 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @12:43PM (#864958)

    If there truly is (currently) no way to delete a purchase history, it's good that this is coming to light quickly, and it should also be rectified quickly - with yet another incomprehensibly complex privacy preference setting... somewhere in your Google profile.

    Better than finding out 5 years hence that your purchase history was sold to Cambridge Analytica and is the reason that your job recruiters have only been offering you positions which have no human interaction.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Tuesday July 09 2019, @12:55PM (10 children)

      If there truly is (currently) no way to delete a purchase history, it's good that this is coming to light quickly, and it should also be rectified quickly - with yet another incomprehensibly complex privacy preference setting... somewhere in your Google profile.

      I have a better solution:
      1. Don't log in to Google. Ever. Easy peasy.
      2. Profit!

      This includes not using their surveillance email platform. There are plenty of other *free* webmail-based email platforms that don't spy on you. Protonmail, anyone?

      Or, you can just use an actual email client and keep all your emails locally -- optionally on an iMAP server whose hardware you own and control.

      Easy peasy.

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
      • (Score: 4, Informative) by stormreaver on Tuesday July 09 2019, @01:34PM (1 child)

        by stormreaver (5101) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @01:34PM (#864974)

        When this story first broke, I checked my Google history. It knew about my Google searches, Youtube, and my Play Store purchases. Those are all things I expected and wanted Google to know.

        You are absolutely correct about never using any Google service for anything you don't want it to know. For that matter, don't use any third party service if you want to keep your information away from it. Not a single purchase, aside from what I mentioned above, was listed on Google. That's most likely because I don't use GMail as my primary email address. I run Postfix on my own dedicated server ($12/month for a dedicated server) using secure POP to download all new email to my local machine every few minutes, so Google (and everyone else who isn't an actual recipient or the NSA) knows nothing about them.

        I create a different email address for EVERYONE, which also solves my spam problem.

        Transparency isn't the answer. The answer is to stop using third party surveillance services.

        • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday July 09 2019, @08:20PM

          by nitehawk214 (1304) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @08:20PM (#865132)

          In fact, having a tracked history inside of Google/Amazon/etc sounds like a great way to give yourself a normal looking purchase history buying the same boring shit that everyone buys online.

          Now, anyone looking at my purchase history sees what they want to see, and doesn't bother look deeper to find that I paid cash for amazon gift cards at a grocery store to then pay for a VPN provider to get torrents.

          --
          "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 09 2019, @02:46PM (7 children)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @02:46PM (#864989)

        you can just use an actual email client and keep all your emails locally -- optionally on an iMAP server whose hardware you own and control.

        I lived this life from 1996 through about 2006, it was anything but easy peasy. Locally stored e-mails get lost, aren't available on the new computer unless you take care to transfer them, if you live the life you know the pain.

        Maybe if I ever get around to maintaining my own personal cloud presence I could go back to it - have my own webmail service. The value of gmail to me is that it has been consistently "there" since I started using it. This is also true of Yahoo mail which I started using slightly before gmail, but Yahoo hasn't inspired as much confidence about consistent availability into the future as Google, and while alternatives like Proton exist, some even with a long track history, it's that future uncertainty that bothers me.

        Google has snooped my flight reservations, amazon purchases, etc. for over 20 years now. I hope they've gotten enough value from doing so to make it worth their while to continue providing free e-mail service into the future - I certainly know it's worth a lot to me to not have to maintain my whole family's e-mail infrastructure the way I used to back in the 1990s.

        Now, if it ever comes out that Google has been feeding my cellphone number to telemarketers - I think a 350KT W78 delivered by Minuteman to Mountain View wouldn't be a strong enough response.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Tuesday July 09 2019, @03:25PM (6 children)

          I lived this life from 1996 through about 2006, it was anything but easy peasy. Locally stored e-mails get lost, aren't available on the new computer unless you take care to transfer them, if you live the life you know the pain.

          I have also done so since 1996. And never stopped. And never lost an email. I still have most of them (except for the spam and some commercial emails I don't need any more, plus attachments I exported and then deleted from the mail archive), all 14GB of them.

          I had some issues back in the late 2000's where my SMTP server would get blackholed as a spam server, but that hasn't happened in a very, very long time. What's more, that's irrelevant to the discussion, as I could always just have used my ISP's MTA, but I prefer my own, with STARTTLS enabled by default.

          But it *is* easy peasy. Maybe not for the hoi polloi, but for anyone who is even minimally tech savvy.

          There are mail servers (whether they be MTAs, MSAs with webmail interfaces/clients or both) that you can simply drop in on a VM or old hardware with minimal configuration.

          Google has snooped my flight reservations, amazon purchases, etc. for over 20 years now. I hope they've gotten enough value from doing so to make it worth their while to continue providing free e-mail service into the future - I certainly know it's worth a lot to me to not have to maintain my whole family's e-mail infrastructure the way I used to back in the 1990s.

          As for the "value" Google provides, no amount of money is worth my privacy. You've made a different calculation WRT that, and I have no issue with your decision.

          You knew the score and made the decision that your information was owned by Google and not by you. That was your decision to make.

          But you won't get a lot of sympathy from me if you start pissing and moaning about how you're being spied upon.

          --
          No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
          • (Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Tuesday July 09 2019, @05:27PM (4 children)

            by curunir_wolf (4772) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @05:27PM (#865060)

            I've done the same, but a couple of years ago Verizon decided to completely disable any option to send emails. Well, not ANY option - I could switch to using a @verizon.net email address and use their web interface to send them. But my current email addresses? Nope.

            I'm looking into various SMTP services, and will probably subscribe to one at some point. Until then, if I want to send an email, it goes through a gmail or yahoo account. Email is simply no longer free, as you claim. It's either your dollars or your privacy.

            --
            I am a crackpot
            • (Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Tuesday July 09 2019, @05:57PM

              I've done the same, but a couple of years ago Verizon decided to completely disable any option to send emails. Well, not ANY option - I could switch to using a @verizon.net email address and use their web interface to send them. But my current email addresses? Nope.

              I'm with you. That really blows.

              For many (>20) years, I've had an ISP that is server friendly and even gives me free static IPV4 addresses. Sadly, it's a DSL provider, and as such is pretty slow.

              Last year, I decided to look into it, and found that I could have cable Internet *plus* the cable TV for which I was already paying, for less than the cable TV plan I was on. I did so, and now get better than 200Mb/sec down and ~10Mb/sec up with it.

              However, I kept my existing ISP specifically so I could continue to use my own mail/web/DNS servers and host my own domains locally. I did receive an actual snail-mail letter from them a couple weeks ago stating that they had filed for bankruptcy, so that may put this in jeopardy (although, that happened with a couple other incarnations of the ISP servicing my link and they were inevitably picked up by someone else, so I may be okay).

              That said, this is the problem with all the consolidation and duo/tri-opolies in most places in the US for wireline Internet. These guys want to make internet connections content distribution channels rather than peer nodes.

              We need to fight that. But that's a much longer and more difficult discussion.

              I'm looking into various SMTP services, and will probably subscribe to one at some point. Until then, if I want to send an email, it goes through a gmail or yahoo account. Email is simply no longer free, as you claim. It's either your dollars or your privacy.

              As I mentioned, you can use services like Protonmail [protonmail.com] which provides full, end-to-end encryption for reading and receiving mail. It also provides encrypted storage (you manage your own keys, so they have no access either) on their servers.

              Other free mail services likely offer this level (or less) of encryption and don't spy on you either.

              You definitely have to work harder, but you *can* have email that isn't spying on you.

              The question really becomes, "how much is my privacy worth to me?"
              Once you can answer that question, you can make rational decisions about what sorts of services you want to use.

              --
              No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
            • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 09 2019, @09:53PM (2 children)

              by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @09:53PM (#865174)

              We told Verizon to F themselves in 2013 and haven't ever looked back.

              I've never had terribly good experiences with SMTP through web hosts, blacklist issues, server upgrades that break my config, etc. You can make it work, but as you say, you have to pay. On the other hand, I think some of the cheaper webhosting sites are something like $45 for a 3 year contract these days, including all the e-mail support you'd ever need.

              --
              🌻🌻 [google.com]
              • (Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Wednesday July 10 2019, @01:04AM (1 child)

                by curunir_wolf (4772) on Wednesday July 10 2019, @01:04AM (#865243)

                My only other option besides Verizon FIOS would be Comcast, and around here they are slow(er), much less reliable, and probably have the same issues with the SMTP.

                The setup here is really eclectic. I have domain registration with one place, DNS service with another (Zonomi - really good, recommend those guys), and I like hosting everything right here on a VM or two with and an R-Pi for some critical services to keep things running when the VM host is down. Totally do not need a full web hosting service.

                There are some places that do just basic email forwarding for a custom domain, which is all I'm missing. I had narrowed that down to one or two but never actually pulled the trigger on one of them. Probably have to research again to find one. Soon.

                --
                I am a crackpot
                • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 10 2019, @11:50AM

                  by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday July 10 2019, @11:50AM (#865343)

                  Yeah, we're stuck here with "choice" of Comcast and AT&T, and Comcast is the lesser evil - but, we only use them for access and DNS.

                  My full web host is FAR more expensive than I need, I've got the same provider since 1997 and it's easy to be lazy, they've only cost me about
                    2 hours of un-necessary reconfig work in the last 22 years - so there's value in that. If I shopped the deal I could possibly save over 50%, maybe as much as $8 a month less - it's hard to get motivated to do all the work of migration for $8 a month.

                  --
                  🌻🌻 [google.com]
          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 09 2019, @09:44PM

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @09:44PM (#865168)

            And never stopped. And never lost an email.

            As the Aussies say: G'danya.

            I never lost an e-mail from the beginning of time through 2003, when I entrusted my company laptop to the IT department for an upgrade from Win98 to whatever was next... told the guy: "only thing I care about are my e-mails, you can let the rest of the files go, but save the mails." Reply was something to the effect of: BS BS BS "do it all the time will migrate" BS BS BS "don't worry, simplest thing ever to do, we've got you covered." Three hours later, I had my laptop back with the OS upgraded and, if you haven't guessed yet you've never worked with corporate IT, the last 3 years of e-mail completely vanished, unrecoverable, gone forever. It was actually quite liberating, I used to answer a lot of questions with "I've got that in an old e-mail, I'll look it up for you..." and suddenly I could, without a shred of guilt, answer "nope, sorry, can't help with that - ask IT why."

            I continued to manage mine and my wife's home e-mail on ageing Eudora clients which worked quite well, but I had already started migrating most of my personal e-mail traffic to G-mail, and it was quite a bit easier, particularly as I hopped from work to home to other PCs. I setup POP3 and IMAP clients, migrated and consolidated archives, Eudora's search functions literally kicked MS-Office's ass, but Gmail search and spam filtering was just a little bit better, and so much less work. Getting my wife off Eudora was a matter of convincing her to learn something new... once she did, having her on Gmail really took a load off, particularly anytime she got a new PC (which has been about 6 since the migration to Gmail.)

            SMTP server would get blackholed as a spam server

            I had some of that around the 2000-2004 timeframe also with my ISP, and just recently they've done something that has completely borked our POP3 access - but since we're 99.999947% migrated off of them it just doesn't matter.

            But it *is* easy peasy

            If you enjoy it, maybe. I've got other things I'd rather do on the tech-hobby front with my time, and if you're honest with yourself, you are spending quite a bit of time managing your e-mail yourself instead of surrendering to the all seeing eye.

            no amount of money is worth my privacy

            We don't do much facebook around here, my wife might take a few too many photos of her food to share for my taste, but otherwise we're not much into self-promotion. On the other hand, we generally invite people to learn more about our private lives because we're well past the "nothing to hide" stage and into the "you wanna take a closer look at this shitshow? Please do, we're proud of how we've managed the impossible challenges, and if you can in any way help us make things better, you are absolutely invited to make suggestions" territory.

            I used to develop closed source software for sale, so that needed to be kept secure, but having Google manage our e-mail doesn't impact that in any way at all. Lately, on the rare occasions I have time, I develop with open source in mind instead - again, it's easier than protecting secrets and building in lock mechanisms, and if someone wants to "steal my great inventions" more power to 'em, I've made better stuff in the past and I know that the value of these better mousetraps is in direct proportion to the amount invested in promotion, so if you're stealing my shit - that's free promotion for me. If I kept it all for myself I know I don't have enough spare resources to promote it into being worth anything significant anyway.

            start pissing and moaning about how you're being spied upon.

            Anybody who doesn't realize the degree to which Google "reads your mail" is just absolutely clueless. Ads show up for the things you're talking about in your mail, both what you type and what other people have typed to you... those reminders that your flight leaves in 3 hours and it's time for you to start driving to the airport (based on your current location)... most of it is cheap parlor tricks, and I really don't care or "value" it much at all, though one of those flight reminders might have kept me from missing a flight once.

            Unless your correspondents use PGP with you, e-mail is like an open post-card, free for anyone in the mail system to read. And, if they do, what kind freaky shit are you and your friends into that's worth that extra effort? I like to say that using stuff like that, and TOR, is the best way to get yourself on the top of the investigators' "people to look closer at" list.

            I developed, and proudly announced to the US government, a steganography app which I tested against a number of steanography detectors which couldn't tell that there was any hidden info in the .png images. At the time, our company had annual "security briefing" visits from the local FBI office, and, yet, now almost 10 years later, nobody has ever said peep about it. Maybe I'm on a watchlist, but if I am they have been VERY inconspicuous about it, and the FBI was hardly inconspicuous when conducting our security audits after the briefings. Anyway, point being, I have this great tool for communicating "under the radar" out of sight of even people who look for encrypted communications, I've spammed out a bunch of "Ha, there's a secret message here" images to public boards just to do it, but, in reality, it's one of the most useless apps I ever made, except for the fact that in 2012 a guy gave me a bitcoin for a copy of it - $4 at the time, and I made a whopping 5625% on that deal - got a whole $225 for it in 2013, too bad I didn't also invest another $4000 in BTC at the time.

            --
            🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday July 09 2019, @08:17PM

      by nitehawk214 (1304) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @08:17PM (#865131)

      So... what do I need to buy to get one of these jobs?

      --
      "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Tuesday July 09 2019, @12:59PM (6 children)

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @12:59PM (#864965)

    This is illegal under the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation. Google must provide a way by which data can be deleted.

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday July 09 2019, @02:12PM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 09 2019, @02:12PM (#864981) Journal

      They will provide a way - for you Euros. 'Mericans haven't evolved to the GDPR stage.

    • (Score: 2) by Booga1 on Tuesday July 09 2019, @03:19PM (4 children)

      by Booga1 (6333) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @03:19PM (#865002)

      Companies are not forced to delete "every little thing" someone asks them to. They can retain anything needed for contractual or legal reasons, such as purchase history, account balances, receipts, etc...
      Companies providing services can also generally retain things required to provide you with the services associated with the account, and well it looks like this is part of the Gmail service now.

      The GDPR even allows companies to ignore or charge a fee for future requests if someone is making "manifestly unfounded," excessive, and repetitive requests. Though, I'm not aware of any news stories about that actually having been tested yet.
      https://gdpr-info.eu/art-12-gdpr/ [gdpr-info.eu]

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by ikanreed on Tuesday July 09 2019, @03:32PM

        by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 09 2019, @03:32PM (#865008) Journal

        Purchase history with them. Google does not have a meaningful legal interest in your purchases.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Tuesday July 09 2019, @03:37PM

        by PiMuNu (3823) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @03:37PM (#865011)

        > They can retain anything needed for contractual or legal reasons, such as purchase history

        I believe TFA was referring to purchases _on non-google websites_. For example, purchases made, using an account registered to a gmail email address, but on amazon or whatever. Google has no contractual or legal obligation to retain this data.

        > Companies providing services can also generally retain things required to provide you with
        > the services associated with the account, and well it looks like this is part of the Gmail service now.

        I wonder whether "I am providing a service to you that I will keep all data Evah recorded about you even though you asked me to delete it" will stand up in court.

      • (Score: 2) by Lester on Tuesday July 09 2019, @05:55PM (1 child)

        by Lester (6231) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @05:55PM (#865081) Journal

        They can retain anything needed for contractual or legal reasons

        In Spain, Amazon has no legal reason to keep my purchases after 5 years. Maybe it is debatable, but google? what legal reason has google have data about me?

        • (Score: 2) by Booga1 on Tuesday July 09 2019, @06:26PM

          by Booga1 (6333) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @06:26PM (#865092)

          what legal reason has google have data about me?

          This "Purchase History" feature is part of Gmail now. If you used Gmail as your communication method with a 3rd party retailer/company then it is a record created to deliver that functionality of the service.
          I can easily see how a Google lawyer could make a point that they believe they are in compliance with the GDPR on this issue because it is part of the core functionality of that feature.

          It might not be a feature of the service people want, but unless they offer the ability to turn it off, the only option is to stop using Gmail when communicating with other companies you're doing business with.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by SomeGuy on Tuesday July 09 2019, @02:35PM (7 children)

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @02:35PM (#864987)

    he can't stop Google adding his recent purchases to this list.

    Go to brick and mortar store. Use American Cash to buy things. If a cashier asks, DON'T give them your name, address, phone number, or e-mail address.

    This will only work for a few more years, though, before facial recognition links everything all together. (I think Home Depot may already do facial recognition)

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Tuesday July 09 2019, @03:42PM (5 children)

      by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 09 2019, @03:42PM (#865015) Journal

      I've worked in CRM software.

      If an ATM has a certain major hardware company's logo on it, I can guarantee that it does the following: records the day of extraction and the customer account tagged to the serial number of money pulled out.

      Major corporations that buy into that hardware company's CRM software, and customer information from the bank, they're informed of what person pulled out the 20s from the ATM when the money is pulled from the store's cash registers and put into the safe. Because the money counters are also serial number scanners.

      This is slightly more anonymized, it takes several passes for them to verify that A. you consistently shop at their store, B. you don't give the 20s to some intermediate who doesn't spy on you first, and C. that the net cash transactions at the registers you checkout at show some pattern.

      (If you use the self check-out machines they scan the money at purchase time.)

      But your plan of not being spied on is one the absolute fuckers have already been trying to circumvent for over a decade now. I believe from casual observation that it's also major banks' policies to scan serial numbers of cash when you get it from a teller as well, but that technology wasn't in my company training.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @04:40PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @04:40PM (#865041)

        They're tracking the serial numbers on the damn currency?

        *sigh* No matter how paranoid I am, I'm never paranoid enough.

        • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday July 09 2019, @06:44PM

          by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 09 2019, @06:44PM (#865095) Homepage Journal

          They have been doing this in Holland a long time ago -- but not to track spending habits. Currency has its serial number recorded as a bar code. All paper money goes through the central bank regularly, and the bank checks if any serial numbers show up more often than plausible. If it does, they investigate, because those bills are likely counterfeit.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by darkfeline on Tuesday July 09 2019, @09:18PM (1 child)

          by darkfeline (1030) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @09:18PM (#865157) Homepage

          Uh, what did you think the serial numbers were for? In this case, I don't think it's a matter of being paranoid, it's a matter of not thinking.

          I posted about the tracking of serial numbers on cash at least two times previously, but the usual posters seem to want to willfully ignore the fact that it's impossible to escape tracking in the modern world. Most/all of the workarounds Soylentils use are just privacy theater.

          --
          Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
          • (Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Wednesday July 10 2019, @03:03AM

            by SomeGuy (5632) on Wednesday July 10 2019, @03:03AM (#865267)

            I hate to admit it, but it only just occurred to me that *THIS* is really why stores are pushing to self-checkouts these days.

            Had to stop by Home Depot for the first time in more than a year or so, and they had made EVERYTHING self checkout, even though you could still use cash. The entire place feels like one large vending machine now, has cameras that beep at you on every isle, a very unpleasant place, and I don't plan on ever going back there again unless I absolutely have to.

            So, it used to be the most they knew was that at some point a purchase was that day in the store with cash that might have been me. Now it is tied to the exact purchase. If you add in facial recognition, then you have everything.

            Thank you, fucking Nazi spying corporate shitheads.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by NotSanguine on Tuesday July 09 2019, @08:03PM

        I always use pennies.

        No serial numbers on pennies.

        And if anyone wants to steal them, $100 worth weighs 25kg (~55lbs).

        The best part is when you drive up in your 15 foot panel truck to buy a new car or a nice oak bedroom set.

        I just bring down the pallet with the pennies in a huge burlap sack and tell the sales guy, "Just let me know if it's not enough and then go have a nice meal at a nearby restaurant, but not too expensive a meal, and not too far away, as I'll be carrying ~50lbs of pennies with me to pay.

        Life is good!

        --
        No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @04:41PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @04:41PM (#865042)

      all hail monero, the savior of mankind!

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by saturnalia0 on Tuesday July 09 2019, @10:07PM (1 child)

    by saturnalia0 (6571) on Tuesday July 09 2019, @10:07PM (#865183)

    I've been using ProtonMail for over a year now and am satisfied with it. I've subscribed for their basic paid plan because I needed a custom domain, which other providers also charges for.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @01:40AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10 2019, @01:40AM (#865255)

      Still waiting for the SMTP/POP bridge thing to work on Linux.

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