👀 Finance apps selling your data

Happy Monday, {{first_name | friend}}. May your coffee be strong and your creative tinkering turn into billion-dollar businesses. Well, that’s exactly what happened when one company built a tool just to clean up its own internal mess and accidentally launched a whole new empire. 

♦️ Which company started as a back-office fix and ended up with a billion-dollar Uno reverse card? A) Microsoft, B) Slack, C) Oracle or D) Amazon? Take your best guess, and then scroll to the end for the surprise twist. 

⚡️ I’m moving to a new email provider, but you’ll get the same great content, just a smoother ride. Click a few links in this email to show Big Tech’s algorithms some love and keep us connected! — Kim

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Buy now, pay later (BNPL) apps are everywhere. See something shiny? Tap tap, and BAM, you own it in four “easy” payments. Zero interest, no credit card shame spiral. What a dream, right?

But here’s what they’re not telling you: While you’re breaking up your payments, they’re also breaking up your data and sharing it with companies you’ve never heard of.

These apps aren’t just making money from your shopping habits. They’re making money selling data about you.

Let’s talk specifics. Klarna, Affirm, Afterpay, Sezzle, Zip and Uplift are among the biggest BNPL players in the U.S. Nearly all of them are collecting an alarming amount of your personal data. 

We’re talking names, email addresses, phone numbers, exact location (yes, GPS-level), your purchase history, credit score and even your browsing habits. Afterpay alone collects 20 different types of data. Klarna isn’t far behind, and they reportedly grab your in-app messages. What? Let that sink in. 

Sezzle and Zip have been found collecting your web activity outside the app. That’s right, they’re watching what you do online beyond just the purchases you make through them.

It doesn’t stop there. Afterpay shares your data with 17 third parties. That’s 17 more chances for your information to be lost, leaked or sold again. Some of these companies have had data breaches in the past. Once your info is floating around out there, it’s nearly impossible to wrangle it back.

This is why I always tell you about Incogni. It’s a tool that goes to bat for you, scrubbing your personal info from all the shady data brokers and people-search sites. 

You sign up once, and Incogni sends out legal removal requests on your behalf. No chasing, no paperwork, no headaches.

Since I signed up for Incogni, they’ve made over 1,400 data removal requests for me. It keeps working in the background and gives you updates, so you can see your data being wiped from shady sites. It’s one of the smartest things you can do if you care about your privacy (and you should).

✅ Use promo code KIM60 to get 60% off today. Take back control. Incogni makes it simple to protect yourself in a world that profits off your personal life. I’m sure glad they’re taking care of it for me.

Do you cry at rom-coms? Your LG TV will soon know. Plus: Why Netflix is still #1, a man sues Apple for $5 million after his phone got stolen, and how to keep hackers out of your home security cam. All that and more!

Listen on Komando.com →

🧑‍💻 Back-to-the-grind doesn’t have to mean back-to-boring.

🚨 Deals you’ll regret missing: Tech’s best bargains are all on my Amazon page. Prices this low? Blink and they’re gone.

🩸 Your AI cult leader: According to a wild new Atlantic exposé, ChatGPT gave detailed instructions for self-mutilation, murder and satanic blood rituals. The chatbot suggested razor blades, altar layouts and printable PDFs like it was planning a dark Pinterest party (paywall link). OpenAI says it’s working on stronger safeguards, but the devil is definitely in the prompt details.

Goodbye, gentle parenting: “FAFO parenting” is going viral, and no, it’s not a Montessori method. Think: tough love (paywall link) with a code of conduct. Short for “F– Around and Find Out,” FAFO (pronounced “faff-oh”) favors natural consequences over endless negotiations with participation trophies. Kids act up, they have to straighten up or else. Nope, there’s no belt hanging on the doorknob.

🫖 Tea gets scalding hot: An app called Tea lets you anonymously review your exes. Think: “Would not date again, bad communicator, great dog.” That five-star smile? It’s got a one-star past. The app is gaining steam with women as a dating safety tool, but critics warn it’s a defamation lawsuit waiting to happen.

Absolutely no fundamentals: GoPro’s stock ripped 58% in 48 hours last week because meme stock energy is so back, baby. No earnings, no innovation, just internet hype. r/wallstreetbets revived the rally that once made GameStop briefly worth more than Delta. 

Coder in Cellblock D: Preston Thorpe might be serving an 11-year sentence in Maine, but that didn’t stop him from landing a full-time software job at a VC-backed startup based in San Francisco. The company found him through his open-source contributions. The kicker? He codes from prison as part of a state rehabilitation program.

🤖 Compliments to the chef: A Dubai restaurant called WOOHOO (yes, really) is letting an AI large-language model plan your meal. “Chef Aiman” breaks down food by flavor profiles, combines odd ingredients, then humans cook the final dishes. That gives “AI slop” a whole new dimension!

A recent lawsuit reveals the ugly truth: Autopilot can ignore stop signs, blow through intersections and fail to brake.

Listen on Komando.com →

“What’d you say?” Barry doesn’t say that anymore since he got hearing aids. Horizon IX hearing aids deliver clear sound, smart comfort and seamless connectivity. Try them risk-free for 45 days, and enjoy lifetime support.*

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: On WhatsApp, you can bookmark any message by long-pressing it and tapping the star icon at the top. Then go to the three-dot main menu and find it under Starred.

📺 Skip the app-hopping: Stream HBO Max, Paramount+, Apple TV+ and more, all inside Prime Video. Just log in on the web, click the Channels tab at the top and follow the prompts to subscribe. Now (almost) all your shows are in one place. So much easier. 

Add a website to your iPad Home Screen: In Safari, tap the Share button (top right) and choose Add to Home Screen. Give it a name, hit Done, and it’ll show up as an icon you can move like any app. Much better than digging through bookmarks for your favorites.

💻 Free up RAM on Windows: If your laptop’s slow, disable unnecessary startup apps. Go to Settings > Apps > Startup and toggle off things like Microsoft Edge or anything else you don’t use. Bonus: Click Start > Power > Restart to clear memory if it’s just a one-time issue.

Find big files in Gmail: You can clear up space by searching for bulky emails. In the Gmail search bar, type filename:mp4 or filename:png to find large attachments. You can also search by size with larger:10mb. Select what you don’t need, and hit Delete to clean up your inbox.

🛑 Block pop-ups in Chrome: Sick of annoying pop-ups or pages redirecting you without asking? Go to Settings > Privacy and security > Site settings > Pop-ups and redirects and choose Don’t allow sites to send pop-ups or use redirects. It’s not an ad blocker, but it helps keep sketchy sites in check.

79%
That’s how much traffic a top-ranked site can lose when it’s bumped below an AI summary. New AI Overviews are less “helpful assistant” and more “content pickpocket.” Why click a link when the robot already did the reading for you? At this point, calling it “search” is generous; it’s more like passive-aggressive copy/paste.

27 leap seconds
That’s how many extra seconds we’ve added to our clocks since 1972 to keep up with Earth’s slow spin. It’s like adjusting a watch that never quite ticks right. But Earth’s speeding up, and for the first time, we might have to take a second away. So we might all time travel on a technicality. 

2
That’s how many skeletons were found fully intact in Israel’s Tinshemet Cave. Hands clasped like they were posing for a burial photo shoot, they looked eerily peaceful for being 100,000 years dead. Archaeologists still aren’t sure what species they were (Homo sapiens, Neanderthal or Android users), but one thing’s clear: Someone buried them like they mattered. 

Imagine sipping your morning coffee while your table passive-aggressively informs you how late you’re going to be.

That’s what maker Michael Rechtin gifted the world with: a DIY smart table that displays real-time Cincinnati traffic. 

This modern masterpiece combines woodworking, LEDs and a Raspberry Pi with a clever little traffic API hookup.

🚥 The template works for any city. Want to light up LA’s 405 in rage red? Go for it. Or build a fantasy map with mood lighting. Your move, Mordor.

Answer: B) Slack. Back in the 2010s, a quirky little gaming company called Tiny Speck built an internal messaging tool to help manage their remote team while developing a game called Glitch. The game flopped, hard. 

☎️ But the communication tool they built? That thing caught fire. Everyone who saw it said, “Wait, I need this.” Tiny Speck pivoted, polished the app and relaunched it as Slack. Within a few years, it became the Slack millions of users love (and hate), selling to Salesforce in 2021 for a whopping $27.7 billion.

Like your kids, a happy little accident, Bob Ross style.

🖼️ This is the #1 tech newsletter in the U.S., reminding you that some of the best things in life start as Plan B. Keep building your weird little project, you never know what it’ll turn into. 

Forward this newsletter to that one friend who thinks a VPN is a secret government agency. Until then, keep it click-smart and scam-free. 🥳 — Kim

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Photo credit(s): ChatGPT, Michael Rechtin

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This newsletter and its content are intended for informational purposes only. They are provided without warranty of any kind. You shouldn’t construe anything provided here as legal, health, medical, technical, tax, investment, financial or any other kind of advice.

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