Be Warned: Customer Service Agents Can See What You’re Typing in Real Time

Illustration: Jim Cooke (Gizmodo Media Group)
Next time you’re chatting with a customer service agent online, be warned that the person on the other side of your conversation might see what you’re typing in real time. Googling led Scocca to a live chat service that offers a feature it calls “real-time typing view” to allow agents to have their “answers prepared before the customer submits his questions.” Another live chat service, which lists McDonalds, Ikea, and Paypal as its customers, calls the same feature “message sneak peek,” saying it will allow you to “see what the visitor is typing in before they send it over.” So if you don’t want to be monitored or send secret messages to agents, put your phone on mute while on hold and copy/paste messages from another document to your customer service chatbox. And in general, be nice to customer service agents.

Source: gizmodo.com