PayPal is feeling threatened. After Apple announced its new mobile payment platform Apple Pay last week, PayPal took out a full-page ad in The New York Times, blasting Apple’s security record in the wake of the celebrity nude scandal.
The tagline of the ad references the so-called Fappening, the release of countless celebrity nudes stolen from Apple’s iCloud servers. It reads: “We the people want our money safer than our selfies. PayPal, protecting the people economy.”
PayPal has a dubious security record of its own. As Pando Daily notes, PayPal’s two-factor verification was recently shown to be wildly unsafe, and parent company eBay has had its network breached in recent months as well.
Even so, it shouldn’t be a surprise that competitors are attacking Apple. Although Cupertino argued that the leak of celebrity nude pics wasn’t a “breach,” it still made Apple look bad at a time when the company was expecting people to not just trust them with their selfies, but with their bank accounts as well.
No wonder, then, PayPal is kicking Apple when the company is down. PayPal has a lot to lose if Apple Pay becomes dominant. That’s not stopping PayPal from putting forward a nonchalant attitude about Apple Pay in public, though.
Source: Pando
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
39 responses to “PayPal slams Apple Pay in full-page New York Times ad”
Um, I use paypal on my iPhone. Does this mean I should stop?
I stopped using PayPal over a year ago when someone started buying goods from Ebay using my account with a different credit card than mine. I continue to receive emails stating someone has repeatedly tried to access the account still despite my no longer using it at all.
Started using Square for my clients and switched to prepaid Visa for everything else online.
Same here. I shipped a product to a customer and it showed that it was delivered but the person lied and said they were the ones who accepted it. Paypal took back to money from me. AWESOME!
I had the same thing happen to me, and paypal would not listen at all … shipped out a cell phone and lost 80$ over it.
You’re lucky, I lost $745!
You should stop using PayPal for a number of reasons.
Who is PayPal? HEHE. Never used them and never will. Come to me Apple Pay.
Yeah as the article pointed out, PayPal is not immune to data breaches as well. Seems ironic they would try batting at Apple this way.
Apple “Play”???
Fixed. Thanks.
Apple’s had my credit card info since I joined iTunes years ago. Never seen an issue yet. Can PayPal say that about the CC info? If something was going to leak, I’d rather it be selfies.
CC data in PayPal is encrypted once you enter it, no way a hacker could see it even if your account was breached.
This is hardly a “slam” if they deliberately conflated two services to confuse people. The scientific term is “deceptive fear-mongering.”
It is very sad to see all these companies (e.g. PayPal and Samsung) going after Apple with these stupid ads. If they think they are better than Apple, they should just focus on their features, without trying to make unfunny jokes on other companies.
Agreed. The thing is, if the companies were good at they were doing, they have nothing to worry about. I love how they are getting mad because it’s so child-like.
This is really stupid. PayPal is exploiting ignorance about what was REALLY at fault for those selfies getting out in order to benefit themselves. What they should do is shut the hell up and work on improving their own security. There is no need for Apple Pay to be the one payment system to rule them all, so why must PayPal do something like this, and alienate users like myself who have had a PayPal account for over 10 years? I don’t want to trust my transactions to a company who pulls crap like this just because they feel threatened. The best strategy for PayPal is to work on making their service something we want to use rather than kicking Apple.
Agreed. As a freelance graphic designer I rely on PayPal and I don’t like their smear campaign especially, as you said, when the message they’re conveying is based on early and seriously false reports.
The media as a whole, however, hasn’t helped either. Rather than report that the attack was targeted and that it had NOTHING to do with any vulnerabilities in iCloud they’ve all but dropped the story in light of Ray Rice and ISIS reports.
I doubt Apple will ever extend Apple Pay into something that rivals PayPal’s services but if they ever did I’d drop PayPal like a bad habit.
Paypal where don’t have to worry about someone else breaching security and stealing your money cause they will just steal it themselves… Paypal most crocked company in the world.
Yeah, Ebay company…
Paypal just doesn’t want any competition in the field of stealing account holders money.
Very true. They finally have competition again.
well if Apple pay comes to Europe, I’m ditching paypal straight away. I would love to have a phone instead my wallet. but more I would like to have an app that would get rid off all my 25 royalty cards. Shops need to change their terminals as they are not capable to scan barcodes from my iPhone.
Apple makes privacy a key feature, distinguishing the company from competitors. Remember IBM in 1984 or more recently Google (which Profits from your Privacy). Apple will (and has to) make privacy even more important after the leaks that also involved iCloud accounts.
PayPal will lose big time if Apple Pay takes off. At least the genius founder Elon Musk sold most of his shares in time :-)
Didn’t PayPal get hacked this year and asked us all to change our passwords? Yep. Real secure.
Apple isn’t perfect, but screw Paypal and their completely unethical business model.
From a marketing perspective it seems that PayPal is panicking and transporting this via their ad.
This is not good for them, because the consumer will start thinking if money will be safe at PayPal…
They will become the new blackberry if they don’t shape up.
Paypal is a joke…i stopped using it ages ago! bring on pay!
Paypal really?? Paypal is a joke …i stopped using it ages ago! bring on pay!
I want PayPal is continue, because it gives hackers something to concentrate on breaching.
Big surprise. All the people on the pro apple site are pro apple. I mean, it’s not like Steve or Tim ever took pot shots at other companies during their conferences. Dumb assess.
I would use PayPal if they didn’t permanent lock me out of my account. But what am I but some dude from New Mexico.
Um my experience with paypal is that it takes your money and won’t give it back. Finds excuse after excuse.
“PayPal slams Apple Pay in full-page New York Times ad”
A full page NY Times ad? Such is the stuff of greed. PayPal has been making billions for years, and just can’t •stand• the idea of someone else making some coin… from coin. PayPal is hardly a safe way to buy and sell.
Move over gracefully, pal, and let someone else do it better, safer, easier… or at least try.
Paypal lost 2000 dollars of mine about 8 years ago. Anything they say is garbage to my ears at least.
I havent used PayPal in a decade. Surprised they still exist.
ApplePay is not PayPal’s competiton. They should calm down! PayPal does soemthing else which ApplePay doesn’t (yet).
PayPal…i Choose any other if there were any!! Apple special. Paypal just have 2 little competition. I shift whwn Apple Pay Comes. Anyone can break in any system. PayPal just scared. Typical “I am scared reaction”