I recently started to avoid buying stuff through Amazon, after I realized that I can virtually use any online shop I want without signing up on their platform if they support payment through Paypal, since my shipping data will be forwarded to the store automatically.
While this is very convenient, it creates a problem: The more stores I buy from, the higher the risk that there is a bad apple that sells my email address to a spam list provider. It could be coincidence, but ever since I moved away from the big stores, I noticed a sharp increase in spam.
I think there is a nice solution to this which might be a cool addon to Paypal's services: Customized email addresses.
So, whenever Paypal forwards my data to a shop, it does not use my standard email address, but a randomly generated address instead. This address is hosted by Paypal and reroutes any mail traffic from the business to me. This allows me to trace any email received through such an address back to the purchase, and therefore the shop. It would also allow me to sever ties with the shop for any reason, e.g. spam or unwanted ads if Paypal would provide a way to stop forwarding from certain addresses. Paypal could even check the mail data sent from stores for spam and inform them about data leaks if any particular business starts spiking in the amount of spam sent through their randomized mail addresses.
This will put pressure on businesses to keep user data safe and it will also allow Paypal customers to find out about shady business practices. It would definitely make me more comfortable using Paypal for shopping at smaller businesses.
