Today, Wal-Mart announced that it will start re-selling HughesNet satellite broadband Internet access, starting at 700Kbps for $59.99 a month, through 2,800 of its stores “including locations throughout most of rural America where terrestrial broadband services, such as cable and DSL, are often not available.” To help spur initial sign-ups, Wal-Mart will give new customers $100 RFID-enabled “ExpressPay” cards to use while shopping at the retailer.
internet
Protect Yourself From Badware
By 10.8.07
Stopbadware.org has just released its “Trends in Badware 2007” report, a free overview of all the ways you and your computer can be slipped digital roofies while you’re online looking at LOLpornography and doing your banking through Twitter. It’s written in a deliberately non-technical style, so if you’re put-off or intimidated by the Slashdot crowd, this is a great way to educate yourself or a naive loved one about the dangers of drive-by downloads, website hacking, and so on.
Amazon Investigates Safety Concerns Posted To Its Website?
By 10.5.07
I just wanted to let you guys know that Amazon has been tracking reviews posted for possible safety concerns. I had a rice cooker that decided to shock me several times, so I wrote an anonymous review back in January. Unexpectedly, a few weeks ago, I get an email from Amazon asking about the incident. Given the gap between the review and the email, I suspect this is a new program on their part. A copy of their email is below.
Qwest Launches Customer Internet Protection Program
By 10.2.07
Qwest would like you to know they’ve launched some fancy new “Consumer Internet Protection.”
Google Says It's Looking Into New Privacy Technologies
By 9.28.07
Google is looking into new ways to protect the privacy of its huge number of users, says their chief legal officer. These include “crumbled cookies,” which spread a user’s information out so that it’s not connected to a single piece of code, and providing better information on the source of each ad that’s served.
Retire Early By Suing Google For Anything
By 9.26.07
You’re likely reading The Consumerist in the middle of a workday, so we’re guessing you’re receptive to new ideas on how to make lots of money fast without actually doing any work. Here’s a great way: just make up some reason to sue Google.
Walmart Launches "Customer Contact Reduction" Program, Disconnects Phone
By 9.24.07
Walmart.com doesn’t want to talk to you, so they’re disconnecting their phone as part of their new “Customer Contact Reduction Program.”
Is Bank of America Lying About Website Security?
By 9.24.07
According to a demonstration by Chris Soghoian over at CNet, Bank of America’s “SiteKey” picture authentication feature can be spoofed by phishers and is, basically, worthless.
Senate Commerce Committee To Decide Fate Of Internet Tax Moratorium
By 9.22.07
The Senate Commerce Committee is poised to extend the internet tax moratorium by the end of next week. The moratorium prevents states and localities from taxing internet access, but will expire on November 1 unless Congress acts. There are two competing proposals that pit state legislatures and the National Governors Association against Google and Verizon.
Google Adds Presentations To Documents
By 9.18.07
Starting today, presentations — whether imported from existing files or created using the new slide editor — are listed alongside documents and spreadsheets in the Google Docs document list. They can be edited, shared, and published using the familiar Google Docs interface, with several collaborators working on a slide deck simultaneously, in real time. When it’s time to present, participants can simply click a link to follow along as the presenter takes the audience through the slideshow. Participants are connected through Google Talk and can chat about the presentation as they’re watching.
Now you can bore your coworkers to death for free!
New York Times To Discontinue Times Select
By 9.18.07
Yay! Free New York Times! The NYT will discontinue its pay wall tomorrow, freeing the opinions of various smart people to roam the internet unchecked by that pesky $7.95 per month subscription fee. Oh, happy day.
Are Bundled Packages A Threat To Privacy?
By 9.16.07
The L.A. Times read the privacy policies of several bundled service providers and found that they are feverishly monitoring their subscriber’s activities. With the ability to monitor internet, phone, and television preferences, bundled service providers are able to track nearly every aspect of their subscriber’s digital lives. While Google retains personally identifiable for less than two years, some ISPs like Time Warner cling to your data for an astounding fifteen years in order to “comply with tax and accounting requirements.” It gets worse.
There are red flags to be found in each telecom provider’s privacy policy. A close reading of Time Warner’s policy reveals:
By 9.13.07
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After an 18-month-long investigation, German police have arrested 10 Russians, Ukrainians, and Germans who they think were involved in phishing scams that bilked users out of “hundreds of thousands of euros.” The suspects targeted customers of eBay and Deutsche Telekom, among other companies, and lived “luxurious lifestyles involving expensive jewelry, cars and travel.” [Reuters]
How To Order A Domain Name From GoDaddy
By 9.13.07
The times, they are a changin’: whether it’s for business, a hobby, some drunken money-making scheme at three in the morning, or just to feel like you own something (our girlfriend says it’s “the poor man’s real estate”), there’s a good chance that you have bought or will buy a domain name at some point. One of the cheapest and most popular places to do this is GoDaddy.com, and designer C. Julian Klewes has written a handy illustrated guide to getting through their check-out gauntlet unscathed.
UK Broadband Providers Show US What Real "Competition" Looks Like
By 9.8.07
Even our readers can’t agree on whether net neutrality is a good or a bad thing, so we thought we’d stoke the fire with a nice side-by-side comparison of sample broadband options for consumers in two “free markets,” the US and the UK. Art Brodsky of the Huffington Post (oops, we probably already lost half of you) writes that a British man he met while traveling showed him a spreadsheet he’d put together that compared 59 different broadband providers, so he’d know which one to do business with.
Department of Justice Says No To Net Neutrality
By 9.7.07
The U.S. Department of Justice officially spoke out against net neutrality this week, in a filing with the FCC that says such regulations would “prevent, rather than promote, optimal investment and innovation in the Internet, with significant negative effects for the economy and consumers.” The department says the free market has done just fine so far, and that “precluding broadband providers from charging [content providers] directly for faster or more reliable service” could shift the burden of cost directly onto consumers.
Mortgage Industry Lays Off More Workers
By 9.7.07
The mortgage industry isn’t just hemorrhaging money anymore, it’s hemorrhaging jobs. Two more mortgage lenders (Lehman Brothers Holdings and the National City Corporation) announced that they would be laying off 2,000 employees.
