In August, Facebook will make its Facebook Pay payment service available outside of its own platforms for the first time. Facebook’s announcement describes the move as providing a mobile-friendly seamless checkout experience for businesses that choose to use it, noting that Facebook users already use the service to send money and purchase items in Facebook Shops and the Facebook Marketplace .
There’s not much to Facebook’s announcement, which mostly repeats feel-good bullet points that apply to the entire online finance industry, not just Facebook Pay, for example, the system’s use of encrypted storage and the fact that companies using Facebook Pay accept, don’t pay. You don’t need to manage customers’ card or bank account numbers. While these features sound good at first glance, they are both the strictnessno innovations – most online stores already use third-party payment processors that manage credit card and bank account numbers for them.
Facebook promises that Pay users’ credit card and bank account information will not be used to “personalize their experience” or targeted advertising. The company also says that payments and purchases are not shared with a user’s friends or a user’s profile or feed. It’s worth noting that these are explicitly separate promises: Facebook not promises that payments and purchases will not be used for “personalization” or ad targeting.
Checking the Facebook Pay privacy issues blog post makes that last point pretty clear:
As with our other products, the actions you take with Facebook Pay may be used for purposes such as delivering more relevant content and ads, providing customer support, and promoting safety and integrity (for example, to investigate violations of our payment policies) . . For example, if you buy a baseball glove on Facebook Marketplace, you might see an ad for a baseball bat. On the bright side, at least direct email marketing arising from Facebook Pay activity is opt-in, not opt-out; the same blog post says that “Companies and non-profit organizations may use only [your email address] for marketing purposes if you opt in.”
Facebook Pay’s first forays outside of the Facebook ecosystem will only be in Shopify stores, but the service is expected to expand to more shopping platforms and payment processors over time.