This is very disappointing. What I am wondering is whether other online retailers will have to charge sales tax. It seems that this assault is leveled at Amazon only, and while I make many purchases there, I also shop at other sites that do not charge me sales tax. I do not see Amazon having an unfair advantage. I'm not happy with the prospect of feeding a government that is so uncivilized that it allows its citizens to do without health care, and horribly mismanages tax dollars. I suppose it is good that I will spend less money, because it is a fact that I will do just that. Hopefully California sales tax won't extend to food, but I suppose Amazon will still give consumers the advantage by offering lower prices. I already regularly buy certain groceries there. I was kind of excited about Amazon's upcoming version of the iPad, but I won't buy it at all if I have to pay sales tax.
I've used FastMail for a few years, and would never give it up. I have never seen a better deal, in fact, I looked at a provider referred to in the comments that charges $19.95 monthly. Crazy, and I doubt they could compete as far as features and quality of service. I use a number of e-mail services, but FM is one that I won't be dropping. I actually do not see any real competition because of the features and price. Cotse and Swissmail.org are very good, but they come with a higher price and still don't have many of the features of FastMail.
$14.95 DSL from AT&T is what got me to upgrade from dial-up a couple of years ago. That rose to $19.95 not too long ago, and I changed my phone service to measured local service to make up some of the cost addition. I'd love faster internet, but the highest service I can get from AT&T in my location is Express. I wanted Pro. What I have is worth $14.95, and I wouldn't want to pay more than I'm paying now, but when the cable company charges $57 monthly, the decision is not that hard - especially when I hear about how cable internet gets slow and other problems with it. The DSL has been consistent for me.
I don't automate any payments, as that would take much more faith than I have. I pay bills online whenever possible, using bank Bill Pay or bank debit cards. I have two banks especially for the risky internet, meaning PayPal and debit card transactions. I actually love PayPal because I feel that it protects me as a buyer. I don't keep much money in it, but of course it can access the two banks I have registered with them. And they have limited funds in them.
Certified mail is a formality best used when the recipient doesn't want to receive the mail, so the sender can have proof that the mail was sent. USPS gives excellent service, and it is a rare thing for first class mail not to be received. Personally, I do not accept certified mail and would not use it outside of extraordinary situations. Certified mail can be refused just like a package, and when it is, it is returned to the sender. The sender, at that point, has no proof of anything and has paid a fee for nothing.
Even though it is common knowledge that information on credit reports is often inaccurate, these reports are looked at as though they are accurate. The credit bureaus collect information given to them, and have no responsibility to see that it is accurate. Unless the consumer "opts out", their information will be sold to marketers of credit cards and the like, for the profit of the credit bureau. I wonder what the work and responsibilities of the credit agencies consist of. That they exist is a serious violation of the privacy of the citizenry. How they operate is appalling.
I don't know if it's true, but I heard that clearing up a case of identity theft costs the consumer about $35,000. This is wrong. I once disputed an item on my credit report, and the employee who added my (written!) words to the report mangled it with spelling errors as though a moron had written it. After that, I decided to never interact with the agencies again, and leave the errors - some of which are erroneous and basic identifying information. I no longer check my credit report, and I will not take advantage of PayPal's credit alert system. Of course we cannot help when others cause activity on our reports by running a credit check.
I had a problem after 12 years with Verizon, when I upgraded my phone and then it quit working after two months. I was told I'd have to buy a new phone at full price. Instead, I cancelled my service and was charged a termination fee. I refuse to pay it, so I imagine it could impact my credit report. I was talking to someone who had the same problem with his cell phone company, and he said, "I paid the fee. I couldn't let them damage my credit report!" So this means he is obliged to allow companies to rip him off, as long as the threat of damage to his credit report is there.
These things need to change. And they will not unless people quit allowing themselves and their privacy to be exploited. The credit bureaus need to be disarmed, or required to actually do a job.
Maybe it's a Dell thing. I got a new HP computer last December, and I think it was McAfee on it. Whatever it was, I didn't want it. It wouldn't uninstall through add/remove programs, but I Googled and found a way to get rid of it so that I could install AVG, which suits me just fine.
Earthlink needs the business and is working hard to get customers every way it can. Don't know if they still own People PC, but they just recently bought Access-4-Free and Joi Internet from Hawk Communications. Customers from those providers would transfer to EarthLink by default if they didn't make the effort to cancel. I had Joi Internet and cancelled immediately upon receiving the news, as I had an experience with EarthLink a few years ago concerning billing that I would never again risk by giving them billing info.
Anyone who would be happy with dial-up, as I am, has no need to pay $22 a month. I get it ad-free for $6.75 a month from an honest provider.
Better to save and buy one's computer of choice. Reminds me of the AOL deal aimed at seniors and "Latinos", assuming that those customers had so little knowledge that they'd bite on a pretty bad offer.
Opera is the clear winner for me. Maybe it's my computer (Windows 98), but Firefox is slow - and that's without running a mail program with it. The speed of Opera, the integration with M2 (including feeds), the ability to customize and the utter lack of necessity of paying for more than a dial-up connection make it perfect for me.
I have to say that I love Firefox's cookie handling - being able to reject cookies. But I just can't take the slowness. Another thing I like about Firefox, which applies as well to K-Meleon, which I do use daily, is the inability to properly render certain sites that are better and faster without full rendering. One is http://moneyballs.com/ K-Meleon is about as fast as Opera, but in the case of this and other similar sites, it is faster than Opera. So I wouldn't do without either one of these browsers.
That doesn't surprise me. I've long thought that Florida was land of the most unscrupulous marketers, including telemarketers peddling Florida vacations and timeshares.
I don't get a lot of spam, but still report every one to SpamCop. Also joined this because spam targeted at domain owners really offends me. Spam should be entirely eliminated, but until that 1% quits buying the goods, it will remain profitable to those miscreants.
I would never choose ads, because I don't like being targeted. Ads that I consider legit are placed on web pages, including affiliate links. I also run across products of interest when I'm searching Google - I found FastMail through doing a search and have never seen them advertised outside of their e-mail support forum. I like finding what I want, not being recruited. Anything that uses forced advertising, targeted ads or pop-up ads on other sites, I will not buy. Obviously someone is buying stuff, or there wouldn't be these types of advertising. As for Opera, I love it, and even though the Google ad is unobtrusive, it is easy enough to customize it away. I've ordered some Opera stuff at CafePress, so I guess I like the way they advertise. I've never used eBay because when I used IE, I'd get eBay pop-ups on other sites, and when I tried to go to another page, another one would pop up.
Slashdot Mirror
This is very disappointing. What I am wondering is whether other online retailers will have to charge sales tax. It seems that this assault is leveled at Amazon only, and while I make many purchases there, I also shop at other sites that do not charge me sales tax. I do not see Amazon having an unfair advantage. I'm not happy with the prospect of feeding a government that is so uncivilized that it allows its citizens to do without health care, and horribly mismanages tax dollars. I suppose it is good that I will spend less money, because it is a fact that I will do just that. Hopefully California sales tax won't extend to food, but I suppose Amazon will still give consumers the advantage by offering lower prices. I already regularly buy certain groceries there. I was kind of excited about Amazon's upcoming version of the iPad, but I won't buy it at all if I have to pay sales tax.
I've used FastMail for a few years, and would never give it up. I have never seen a better deal, in fact, I looked at a provider referred to in the comments that charges $19.95 monthly. Crazy, and I doubt they could compete as far as features and quality of service. I use a number of e-mail services, but FM is one that I won't be dropping. I actually do not see any real competition because of the features and price. Cotse and Swissmail.org are very good, but they come with a higher price and still don't have many of the features of FastMail.
$14.95 DSL from AT&T is what got me to upgrade from dial-up a couple of years ago. That rose to $19.95 not too long ago, and I changed my phone service to measured local service to make up some of the cost addition. I'd love faster internet, but the highest service I can get from AT&T in my location is Express. I wanted Pro. What I have is worth $14.95, and I wouldn't want to pay more than I'm paying now, but when the cable company charges $57 monthly, the decision is not that hard - especially when I hear about how cable internet gets slow and other problems with it. The DSL has been consistent for me.
I don't automate any payments, as that would take much more faith than I have. I pay bills online whenever possible, using bank Bill Pay or bank debit cards. I have two banks especially for the risky internet, meaning PayPal and debit card transactions. I actually love PayPal because I feel that it protects me as a buyer. I don't keep much money in it, but of course it can access the two banks I have registered with them. And they have limited funds in them.
Certified mail is a formality best used when the recipient doesn't want to receive the mail, so the sender can have proof that the mail was sent. USPS gives excellent service, and it is a rare thing for first class mail not to be received. Personally, I do not accept certified mail and would not use it outside of extraordinary situations. Certified mail can be refused just like a package, and when it is, it is returned to the sender. The sender, at that point, has no proof of anything and has paid a fee for nothing.
I don't know if it's true, but I heard that clearing up a case of identity theft costs the consumer about $35,000. This is wrong. I once disputed an item on my credit report, and the employee who added my (written!) words to the report mangled it with spelling errors as though a moron had written it. After that, I decided to never interact with the agencies again, and leave the errors - some of which are erroneous and basic identifying information. I no longer check my credit report, and I will not take advantage of PayPal's credit alert system. Of course we cannot help when others cause activity on our reports by running a credit check.
I had a problem after 12 years with Verizon, when I upgraded my phone and then it quit working after two months. I was told I'd have to buy a new phone at full price. Instead, I cancelled my service and was charged a termination fee. I refuse to pay it, so I imagine it could impact my credit report. I was talking to someone who had the same problem with his cell phone company, and he said, "I paid the fee. I couldn't let them damage my credit report!" So this means he is obliged to allow companies to rip him off, as long as the threat of damage to his credit report is there.
These things need to change. And they will not unless people quit allowing themselves and their privacy to be exploited. The credit bureaus need to be disarmed, or required to actually do a job.
Cell phones and laptops, apart from the service that can be had very cheaply, are infrequent purchases. Food is a regular recurring need.
Maybe it's a Dell thing. I got a new HP computer last December, and I think it was McAfee on it. Whatever it was, I didn't want it. It wouldn't uninstall through add/remove programs, but I Googled and found a way to get rid of it so that I could install AVG, which suits me just fine.
I highly recommend coffee, tequila & Bailey's. This news explains why I was in such good shape when I drank it.
Earthlink needs the business and is working hard to get customers every way it can. Don't know if they still own People PC, but they just recently bought Access-4-Free and Joi Internet from Hawk Communications. Customers from those providers would transfer to EarthLink by default if they didn't make the effort to cancel. I had Joi Internet and cancelled immediately upon receiving the news, as I had an experience with EarthLink a few years ago concerning billing that I would never again risk by giving them billing info. Anyone who would be happy with dial-up, as I am, has no need to pay $22 a month. I get it ad-free for $6.75 a month from an honest provider. Better to save and buy one's computer of choice. Reminds me of the AOL deal aimed at seniors and "Latinos", assuming that those customers had so little knowledge that they'd bite on a pretty bad offer.
Opera is the clear winner for me. Maybe it's my computer (Windows 98), but Firefox is slow - and that's without running a mail program with it. The speed of Opera, the integration with M2 (including feeds), the ability to customize and the utter lack of necessity of paying for more than a dial-up connection make it perfect for me. I have to say that I love Firefox's cookie handling - being able to reject cookies. But I just can't take the slowness. Another thing I like about Firefox, which applies as well to K-Meleon, which I do use daily, is the inability to properly render certain sites that are better and faster without full rendering. One is http://moneyballs.com/ K-Meleon is about as fast as Opera, but in the case of this and other similar sites, it is faster than Opera. So I wouldn't do without either one of these browsers.
That doesn't surprise me. I've long thought that Florida was land of the most unscrupulous marketers, including telemarketers peddling Florida vacations and timeshares.
I don't get a lot of spam, but still report every one to SpamCop. Also joined this because spam targeted at domain owners really offends me. Spam should be entirely eliminated, but until that 1% quits buying the goods, it will remain profitable to those miscreants.
I would never choose ads, because I don't like being targeted. Ads that I consider legit are placed on web pages, including affiliate links. I also run across products of interest when I'm searching Google - I found FastMail through doing a search and have never seen them advertised outside of their e-mail support forum. I like finding what I want, not being recruited. Anything that uses forced advertising, targeted ads or pop-up ads on other sites, I will not buy. Obviously someone is buying stuff, or there wouldn't be these types of advertising. As for Opera, I love it, and even though the Google ad is unobtrusive, it is easy enough to customize it away. I've ordered some Opera stuff at CafePress, so I guess I like the way they advertise. I've never used eBay because when I used IE, I'd get eBay pop-ups on other sites, and when I tried to go to another page, another one would pop up.