While Duc has good intentions, there are others who donвЂ™t. ItвЂ™s mind-boggling to think that all of this information about unsuspecting users is out there on the internet. A button that lives on the top right of the projectвЂ™s website walks visitors through a step-by-step guide to do just that, including making all your past transactions private as well. Her ultimate goal? Convince people to change their privacy settings. There were many dozens of other stories Duc could have chosen. While she highlights specific stories on the Public by Default site, these arenвЂ™t isolated instances. On the site, Duc visualizes the number of times the vendorвЂ™s most frequent customer visited himвЂ“34 times in 2017вЂ“and showed what she ordered on each visit. That search yielded another story she calls вЂњThe Corn Dealer,вЂќ where she delves into the data for a fruit cart vendor who has more than 8,000 transactions for 2017. They just donвЂ™t care about that.вЂќДЄfter downloading all the data, Duc dug through it using simple searches, like one for the highest numbers of transactions. вЂњBut in the case of Venmo, youвЂ™d be disappointed.

вЂњItвЂ™s normal for users to say, вЂI expect this service to prioritize my privacy,'вЂќ Duc says. As a result, she was able to download all of the public data from 2017вЂ“all 207,984,218 public transactionsвЂ“simply by clicking on an easily accessible link. Unlike many tech companiesвЂ™ APIs, VenmoвЂ™s API needs no authentication or permission to use it. Each personвЂ™s name has been changed in the project to preserve their privacyвЂ“even if it never occurred to them to do so in the real world.Дuc says that finding the source data was incredibly easy. In a third story, Duc follows a woman she dubs the вЂњyoloistвЂќ for completing 965 transactions over eight months for soda, alcohol, fast food, and sweets.

The dealer even hires someone to deliver for him, leaving a trail of incoming Venmo transfers with captions like вЂњGodвЂ™s treat ozвЂќ and вЂњCBD.вЂќДЄnother storyline follows two couples, one thatвЂ™s fighting and another thatвЂ™s flirting, through the very real comments on their Venmo transactions.

One of the most striking is the вЂњcannabis retailer,вЂќ who runs much of his business through Venmo, with 973 transactions in 2017вЂ“150 of which explicitly mention CBD, and many more of which use other monikers like вЂњdelivery,вЂќ вЂњstuff,вЂќ or even just вЂњweed.вЂќ Thirty-six people mention вЂњgroceries,вЂќ which Duc suspects is another term for drugs. ItвЂ™s like a graphic novel for the Snapchat age. Called Public by Default, DucвЂ™s project follows the stories of real Venmo users (whose information has been anonymized) based on VenmoвЂ™s publicly available data.В Each story is illustrated with emoji, of course, along with clever charts and graphs that highlight just how intimate information about how you spend money is. A new data visualization by the designer-activist Hang Do Thi Duc shows just how revealing the appвЂ™s default settings can beвЂ“and how stupid it is to leave your Venmo transactions public.

Can i download venmo transactions