Mint.com – further thoughts on pros and cons:

At our last meeting, one of our members, Nia, raised concerns about using Mint.com. Beyond cybersecurity or the worry that Mint may get hacked is the concern that Mint is hacking you, its users. Could it be that your information is being shared with the banks and sponsors who take out ads

on Mint? Could the trust that you are putting in this vendor mean that your data is getting sold down the road?

(First off, covering the concern of cybersecurity, Mint.com uses best practices in security to protect your data from an inadvertent breach. That’s not really the main point, though.) I looked at their privacy policy (https://www.mint.com/privacy) to get a better handle on the facts. They are very direct about the

fact that they do use your data to tailor the ads that you see on the site. California residents are also afforded protection against sharing with non-affiliates such as Amex and Chase with whom Mint.com conducts joint marketing. If you have concerns about being pitched products that make more sense for Mint.com’s pocket than for your pocketbook, consider following our advice about using them just as a pass-through so you can get your data into Excel without keying it all by hand, and then getting off their site.

Is there something to be worried about beyond just unwanted ads? It’s easy to lapse into tinfoil hat land and to get lost in speculation. If you are worried that your financial institution is going to get more

data from Mint.com than they (as the processor of your transactions) already have on you, or than would show up on your credit reports, you really have to ask yourself about motive. What would be in it for them? Do I trust them because I think they are good people? No - but I do trust that if they are going to violate consumer protection laws then they can be sued and at some point the greed of class action lawyers acts as a check on the greed of fintech schemers.

The worst-case scenario was spelled out in the following NY Times article from some years back: Intuit could go under or be sold to an unscrupulous company, and your data would go along for the ride. https://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/…/should-you-trust-mint-com/ There was also a hint that your data, along with all the other users’, could give Mint.com insight on the merchants’ financial results and they could sell that information to hedge funds. That’s worrisome, not from a personal level of having your information used against you personally but from the big picture level of more big profits being “earned” in the gray ethical areas. https://consumerist.com/…/do-you-mind-if-mint-sells-data-b…/

It comes down to who can you trust? Big company management teams that don’t aggressively push the boundaries to earn profits get ousted by the shareholders. Regulators eventually get cozy with the industries they are supposed to monitor. What do we hope to do about it with Fi-Club? We’re considering whether some day it would make sense to build our own Mint.com replacement and to safeguard the relationship of trust with the members, we are discussing how to set up Fi-Club as an entity so that it

can’t stray from its mission of putting the interest of members on at least equal footing to the interest of eventual investor shareholders. We are exploring the B-Corp model and considering whether it could be

viable to launch Fi-Club as a mission-focused business. Someday, there may be a Mint.com alternative coming to an iPhone or Android device near you.

Money Strategies FiClub.org