David Barnard(@drbarnard):Today would be a great day for someone to debunk the persistent myths about Apple Pay privacy! The topic deserves a full post, but here are two massive caveats to how Apple Pay’s privacy benefits are commonly described: 1. Apple Pay is pseudonymous, not anonymous. It uses a stable token for each card on each device. If a merchant links that token to your identity (through a loyalty card, email receipt, shipping address, etc.), it can identify your past and future purchases with that merchant whenever you use the same token. 2. Some of that pseudonymity has since been undermined by the payments industry with Payment Account Reference (PAR). It’s a stable, non-payment identifier that allows participating merchants and processors to recognize the same underlying card account across its physical card and associated Apple Pay tokens.

2026.08.21 18:47

Today would be a great day for someone to debunk the persistent myths about Apple Pay privacy! The topic deserves a full post, but here are two massive caveats to how Apple Pay’s privacy benefits are commonly described: 1. Apple Pay is pseudonymous, not anonymous. It uses a stable token for each card on each device. If a merchant links that token to your identity (through a loyalty card, email receipt, shipping address, etc.), it can identify your past and future purchases with that merchant whenever you use the same token. 2. Some of that pseudonymity has since been undermined by the payments industry with Payment Account Reference (PAR). It’s a stable, non-payment identifier that allows participating merchants and processors to recognize the same underlying card account across its physical card and associated Apple Pay tokens.

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SMB Attorney@SMB_Attorney

2026.08.21 15:16

Ohh there’s a good back story! Walmart didn’t just “resist” Tap to Pay… they waged a full 12-year cold war against it starting the exact day Apple Pay launched in 2014. They helped lead a secret retailer cartel called MCX that tried to kill Apple Pay with their own competing system called CurrentC, which spectacularly flopped and died. The reason is data. Apple Pay hides your card so the store never sees the real number or full identity. Walmart Pay forces you into their app so every single item you buy is permanently linked to your profile. They wanted surveillance more than customer convenience. They lost!

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