Slashdot Mirror
Web Firms Choose Profit Over Privacy
An anonymous reader writes "Web Firms Choose Profit Over Privacy details the tactics of retailers and marketers to sell customer data. Examples include promising not to sell consumer data, but then 'renting' the data, and the use of shopping cart software with different privacy policies than the merchant."
Piracy over profit!
"People choose privacy over web firms"
I'm _so_ glad I have my own domain, and can create and destroy email addresses willy-nilly. I haven't seen a piece of spam in about a year, now, and that's with_out_ any spam filtering methods at all.
What next?
Businesses choose profit over customer safety?
Businesses choose profit over employee safety?
What about the obvious?
Businesses choose profit over anything else!?!
I am glad the Washington Post is on top of this. I doubt I would have ever figured this out on my own.
ACK
"Recently, for example, the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation advertised that its list of donors, including postal addresses, was for rent"
He gets free fetuses AND the ability to sell people's personal info! Come on!!!!
I don't know of too many companies that have the following business plan:
...
1. Make product
2.
3. Privacy!
All humor aside, I think it's time we just start over. We need an Internet2 (wait... already taken -- Internet3!) that only allows individuals and well-behaved companies onto it... Either that, or we could just move back to Gopher...
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
To parents interested in buying the popular Hooked on Phonics learn-to-read programs, the company made a firm promise on its Web site: It would never sell or rent their personal information to other marketers. But that pledge was empty.
The children are Hooked on Phonics, and now the parents are Hooked on Phony Emails.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I'll pay $5 for the name of that anonymous submitter.
Why did he say psycho ex-boyfriends and not ex-girlfriends? Is Chris hinting at something here? Or am I drawing conclusions where they don't exist.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
the 257th Rule of Acquisition says "Sell to your customers first, then sell your customers!"
JOHN Q. SPAMMER: Hey, can I buy about 100,000 email addresses from your database?
ONLINE RETAILER: Sorry, we have a strict privacy policy that says we don't sell customer information.
JQS: C'mon, I'll give you a penny per ten. That's $100.
OLR: Our users are not for sale.
JQS: $250. I'm cutting my own throat here.
OLR: Well... our bandwidth bills were $360 last year....
JQS: $350, then. Final offer.
OLR: But, our privacy policy....
JQS: Yeah, yeah. Tell you what, I'll give you the list back in a month. And I won't keep any backup copies. Promise.
OLR: Whew, glad that clears my conscience.
"Now I'm going to show you this list of customers, but you have to promise that after a month you will forget about it, ok? Promise?"
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
Am I the only one who read this as
Web Firms Choose Profit Over Piracy
Now that would've been worthy news.
Must-not-watch TV!
same here. I also sometimes tag my snail-mail address:
Morcheeba
Dept. SD
123 street
City, state zip
I also do it with my telephone number. Example:
(212) 752-7436
That spells out sla-shdo; good enough for me to recogonize. Funny, though, I don't get many unsolicited calls to my masked phone numbers...
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
...to learn that the Hooked on Phonics company was promising not to sell or rent customer's information while advertising it for sale in a trade magazine. Until I read the reason - "A company spokeswoman said the firm was simply slow to update its policy."
That's a big relief, because I was a little slow in updating my checkbook, and now that I think about it, I simply forgot that the account I wrote their check on was closed in 1996.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
Actually, considering how business works and that they will only do PROFITABLE stuff, the most scary thing would be that spam ACTUALLY WORKS! It's hard to believe, but on this planet there are actually people who are willing to buy $1 viagra-knockoffs, have their mortages refinanced by an obscure company 2000+ miles away, are interested in teenage girls doing various uhm... procreational activities for "free" (amateur porn surfers; real men use http://www.thehun.com/ and http://www.sublimedirectory.com/ anyways) and have 300+ phds, degrees, titles, whatnot which aren't recognized ANYWHERE. The problem isn't the spammers that much, the problem is (as usual) stupid people.
I mean, who the FUCK would believe an email from a no-name company, adressing you by your email adress, containing 200+ typos to evade spam filters, uses all-capital text and can be grossly offensive? (Despite popular opinion, I'm not really interested or charmed by a jpg featuring two (or more) south-american guys in a homoerotic position featuring a nice close up of some anal penetration. Remember I'm talking about guys here.)
Hate me!
Hooked on Phonics customers never read it anyway.
paintball
Whoever thinks this is news either has never worked for a web firm, or has never gotten to know their friendly marketing department.
-j
... Water is discovered to be wet
still no cure for cancer.
The mistakes of a clever man are equal to the mistakes of a thousand fools.
Works for me. For example, whenever the IRS asks me why I didn't pay my taxes, I simply reply "I forgot!"
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
You mean Hotmail addresses aren't disposable? I've never had a permanent one! :)
not plane, nor bird, nor even frog...
Shit.....say it ain't so....
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!