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Did you receive your Google Adsense thru Western Union lately? By signing on the Receive Form, you are agreeing with their terms and conditions, including their privacy policy that says and I quote:
WESTERN UNION PRIVACY POLICY – Western Union may disclose your personal information to third parties. The information disclosed may include information describing your transaction with Western Union; identification information, such as the name, telephone number, address and other information about senders and receivers. Western Union may provide such information to financial institutions, such as banks and credit card companies; retailers, such as home furnishers and clothing stores; companies that process transactions or provide other services for Western Union; government agencies; and catalog companies and other direct marketers. You may have other rights regarding the privacy of protection of your personal data under applicable law. Western Union’s policy is always to comply with applicable law.
Go and get your receive form if you don’t believe me. 
In short, your privacy is not Western Union’s priority. They may disclose your information to third parties, including address, telephone numbers, your sender and receiver. They don’t respect our privacy, and we agreed to them by signing on the receive form!
Is there a way to receive the money sent to me without signing the form? Coz that privacy policy is simply BS.
The comment box is now open for your reaction.
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March 11th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
I must admit, I did not have time to read that before. This is because that was the time my family is in the hospital due to Dengue.
Anyway, I think they should include the reasons why and when they will disclose our personal information to third parties. As it was mentioned above, they are just complying with the applicable law.
I think we just need to respect their rule, but it does not mean I agree on it.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
@Angel… i think, they are not breaking any law by giving our personal information to third parties since they are not covered by Bank Secrecy Law. there’s no law prohibiting them to do that.
March 12th, 2009 at 7:49 am
This is dangerous if fallen in the wrong (BIR=government agencies) hands! Tax declaration blah blah.. tsk tsk
March 12th, 2009 at 8:40 am
what are they doing! i still haven’t reached that $100 mark in my adsense no! hahhahaha… tapos malalaman kong ganito ung privacy policy nila… wtf! crap!
March 12th, 2009 at 9:36 am
naku, ibebenta na naman sa telemarketing companies ang info. Bebentahan ka ng credit card, insurance atbp.
March 12th, 2009 at 9:55 am
aagh! buti na lang you are looking after us bloggers. kundi ko pa nabasa to, di hindi ko alam. not that i have adsense income na
March 12th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Di naman siguro nila basta basta na lng ipamimigay ung info natin. I am sure safe naman yn.
March 12th, 2009 at 10:29 am
I totally agree, that privacy policy sucks. Kaya lang, what choice do we have. Western Union is tying us up. They might sell our contact details to spammers for all we know. Hmm.. Maybe we can raise awareness and information by raising posting against that privacy policy in our blogs. and filling the inbox of Western Union with our complaints. LOL
March 12th, 2009 at 11:10 am
di ko napansin yun ah, pirma na lang kse ng pirma eh hehe
March 12th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
well, it’s just fine for me. but i believe they’ll not sell our info to scammers and spammers.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
I hate invasion of privacy. This is unbelievable!
March 12th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Yes.. Western Union is sometimes nakkakasar lalo na sa Shangrila branch ng RCPI..
YOu know why? They look for the Adsense letter and it’s bullshit wala silang pakialam dun di ba?
March 12th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
no choice naman tayo… it’s either we wait weeks for the check to arrive, or we transact with Western Union. Ako mas gusto ko yung mabilis ang dating ng pera. hehe. kaya wala akong magagawa about that. LOL
March 12th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
ay kainis naman nyan! looking forward pa naman ako sa first payment ko. pagkikitaan pa ng western union mga bloggers. ibibenta nila mga info. hehehehe
March 13th, 2009 at 1:43 am
yay! sorry nagkamali ako ng comment. anyways, sobra naman ang western union. dapat may option ang receiver na tumanggi dun.
March 13th, 2009 at 7:19 am
Aw.. kahit di nila sabihin yan pag nabigay natin personal details wala na tayong magagawa, hindi na private, kasi binigay natin. Kahit sa bangko hindi din private. Nag sheshare nga ng database yung mga banks eh.. tsk tsk
March 13th, 2009 at 8:24 am
Naku, hahabulin na ng BIR ang mga bloggers nyan. Patay! Western Union pa naman ang mode of payment na pinili ko..
March 13th, 2009 at 8:30 am
watda? then the best option is to have a bank account for them to deliver your money directly on your account, if you’re already earning on adsense, i believe that there is no reason not to have a bank account right, opening an account is easy and the minimum deposit is very affordable.
am i right, anyone agrees ?
March 13th, 2009 at 9:27 am
ngaun q lng nlaman to, ang masama dito bka nkastore dn xa database nila ung simula at ngaung perang nkuha ntin xa adsense, tpos papatungan ng BIR ng tax, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
thanks xa info kuya marghil
March 13th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
i received my first payout two weeks ago. didn’t really notice the privacy policy. the cold cash was all i was after. this will be a cause of worry if you receive/send P500k above, for any single transaction (or within a span of 1 day). Remittance companies/banks are required to report this to the anti-money laundering commission. However, if they suspect that the transaction is for an illegal activity, then they are to report that too! BSP circular 471 series of 2005.
As to the other uses of our private data, pwede nila gawing negosyo to by selling it. Email address nga lang pinagkikitaan pa ng iba. much more kung halos completo na info. But at least, we are aware.
March 13th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
awts..d ko nabasa un ah..siguro dpat man lang may option sila if we want them not to disclose our private information. e nu pa ba magagawa ntin..=(
March 13th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
this is nasty! how could they just do that without even customers being notified first. what they did is that they implemented a new policy and only until then that they inform the public…
March 13th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Tama si Jehz, even if they did not state it, they could still use the info and sell it to other parties. So paano na ito? Hmmm. Pwede siguro gawing pangit na lang sulat sa WU form para hindi mabasa ng maayos. Lolz.
March 17th, 2009 at 1:09 am
i second emotion, I dont want to react, please close the reaction you opened. get get awwwww
March 17th, 2009 at 2:02 am
yikes…pero mas mabilis sa western diba…haayy..kelan ko kaya makuha ang una kong check??hehe
March 17th, 2009 at 4:10 am
whoops..I did not see that either last time I used western union..I hope it doesnt get sold or spammers get a hold of my personal info!
March 18th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
I think we can;t run from that,
We neew the WU , and even we did it in privacy , I don;t know where the sales from bank known my number and calling me every two weeks offering me a loan..
March 25th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Thanks for the info… Pwede kayang gumawa ng ibang identity. Ang requirements lang naman is two valid ID.
April 2nd, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Western Union doesn’t break any law if they will disclose our information to any third party. I believe that BIR won’t chase after Internet Marketers just yet maybe because they haven’t set any rule for these online businesses.
And one thing more, blogging has been exposed already for quite some time now, i could still remember Jessica Soho has interviewed a blogger here in the Philippines and how he earns a lot of money through blogging and yet no initiative from agencies like BIR to charge tax to all pinoy bloggers.
For now, we should rejoice with this western union stuff regarding adsense payments, fast and reliable form of receiving your earnings compared to snail mailed cheques that could be taken easily by anyone involved in the mail delivery.
April 15th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
@marl
You are right that BIR won’t chase bloggers because the is “no clear clear cut understanding of the matter (ecommerce)”. I will quote from the Virtual Law Journal:
3.4 Enforcement and monitoring of electronic commerce
At present, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (“BIR”) has not issued any regulations regarding electronic commerce. Without any guidelines and a clear cut understanding of the matter, it is difficult to predict how the BIR will manage to enforce the relevant tax provisions in respect of electronic commerce. It is reasonable to assume that until such time as pertinent legislation is introduced in the Philippines, electronic commerce may very well continue unrestricted and unimpeded by any form of taxation from the Philippine government.
Source: http://www.virtuallawjournal.net/?nodeid=33&lang=en
Besides, the are lots of offline big fishes out there to focus there attention.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Nyah! Ngayon ko lang nalaman. Meron pa lang ganun sa kanila. Obviously hindi na nagbabasa, sign nalang ng sign. Hahaha! Thanks sa info.
May 29th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
yay, i didn’t notice that… anyway, thanks for the heads up.. probably, i would just be using the other option which is payment by check..