Robinhood is in the hot seat. Should retail investors be worried?

This appeared in The Millennial Source

Allegations that Robinhood might be selling users’ data to hedge funds has struck a chord with nonprofessional investors throughout the nation.

In the wake of the digital era, users are beginning to realize the extent to which companies are willing to go in order to obtain users’ online data.

Earlier this year, tensions between Apple and some of the larger social media platforms ratcheted up after the company rolled out new privacy features that require companies to extract explicit permission from users in order to track their data.

As a result, the recent allegation that Robinhood Markets Inc., a popular stock and cryptocurrency trading company, might be selling its users’ data to hedge funds struck a particular chord with nonprofessional investors throughout the nation. This came after the company famously imposed restrictions on popular stocks, like those of GameStop Corp., where users were deliberately betting against larger hedge funds.

Yet, while some remain grounded against this “order flow process” — the process by which a company is paid by market makers to enact trades for their users — some analysts argue that it actually benefits nonprofessional (retail) investors utilizing the…