130 million sure sounds like a lot, but keep in mind how many individual transactions companies like 7-eleven have in a single day. Besides wondering why the company security was so weak, I'm more interested in why these companies had so many credit card numbers on file in the first place. Once my transaction is complete, they shouldn't possess the data anymore.

If you have encrypted files on your computer for privacy or safety reasons, you could face big trouble. In some backwards parts of the world (*cough*, the UK, *cough*), they have actually sentenced people to jailtime for not volunteering their encryption keys/passwords.

A New York Times article explains how a woman who couldn't get pregnant more than 10 years ago is still getting advertisements and marketing flyers for baby and child products. This is just another example of data rape at work.

Wow. Symantec has always been a fairly reputable company that I've had little issue with other than that their security software is historically bloated and a resource hog. But now that they've partnered with Lifelock, I can only assume one of two things: Symantec is willing to throw their customers under the bus for money or they have no quality control. Either way, I think it's definitely time to stick with McAfee.

If you want to stay safe while working on your computer or browsing web sites, you can get Norton Internet Security or Norton AntiVirus with a 30-day LifeBook service and 10% off the subscription, along with two movie tickets. After the trial period ends you will be charged automatically with $9 a month, or $99 annually.

Granted, McAfee also does this "free trial" BS in order to trick customers into subscriptions that they didn't know they were getting, but at least the free trial is for their anti-virus software and not some shady ID theft insurance deal.

Lifelock was sued by Experian for placing fraud alerts for anyone and everyone when the alerts are supposed to be set by individuals themselves and only when they feel they are at risk for ID theft. While I think the whole fraud alert system is bogus and it doesn't really matter if you set one or not, I can't help but snicker that the courts ruled that the practice of a 3rd party company setting them for customers (like Lifelock does) is not legal.

Considering that the first 2 bullet points on Lifelock's "what we do" page is "set fraud alerts" and "set them again after they expire", their list of what you supposedly get for the money you pay is going to look quite anemic indeed.

This is a great description of a lot of the dirty tricks credit card companies pull. Remember that a credit-free lifestyle is possible.

Whether this Acai berry has any useful properties or not, when people purchased the "risk-free trial offer" ended up getting charged for tons of extras based on the sneaky way that the company set up their online purchasing system. Customers had to actively find and de-select options for upsell products and add-ons that were selected by default. Anyone that failed to notice them was charged.

Be careful when dealing with infomercial and snazzy website ads for products that claim much, but deliver little. Particularly in the case of food, drinks, or medicines where you won't be able to see the truth of the claims for years (if ever).

A mother of 4 who was hit with a massive fee for sharing music online a while back finally won a new trial, but somehow ended up with a fine almost 10 times as high!

Even though there was no proof of any harm done to the recording companies since there's no way for them to show that anyone actually downloaded any music from her, she was slapped with a nearly 2 million dollar fine for her immense crimes (which were never proven).

Even if 100,000 people had downloaded each of the 24 songs she supposedly shared online (which probably wasn't even intentional as filesharing software generally shares what you download by default), that JTAG ERROR: http://the-great-copyright-holder-lie-music doesn't appear to be a post_name, link_note, or url! This is a tragedy and I don't understand it. At best, it might be a judge's way of getting attention on the issue by pushing the verdict to absurd extremes.

The most important part of this story is that there was notice provided to customers of the resubscriptions, but because it was buried in the license agreement, the courts determined that the subscriptions were charged without consent.

The investigators found that "information about automatic renewal charges was not clearly disclosed, but was instead hidden at the bottom of long web pages or in the fine print of license agreements".

The companies have now agreed to provide electronic notification both before and after the renewal of subscriptions. Customers will also be allowed to apply for refunds for up to 60 days after being charged.

Just because it's in a contract, doesn't mean someone understands it. Companies have enormous leverage against regular people and it's nice to see that courts are standing up for the little guy.

That bill that everyone's been talking about a while just passed with most of the good protections still in tact (go figure). Essentially, the bill is a shinging example of regulation at its best and industry at its worst as it mandates that credit companies stop doing things that are dishonest and one-sided.

Wow. Who knew that without laws to prevent it, companies would stoop to one-sided and dishonest policies for the sake of money… hmmm.

Some of the major points:

(in heavy Indian accent): "Thank you for calling Microsoft! My name is Bob, how may I help you!?"

Yeah sure…

Well, if you're as sick of working with someone who's command of the English language is worse than a drunk's, you'll be happy to know that it looks like the foreign call center could be coming to an end.

(H/T to The Consumerist for the link)

A lot of work goes into making food ads look nice and pretty, but the reality isn't always as good at the props.

(H/T to Lifehacker.com for the link)

I have no idea how I missed this, but it's great news regardless!

If you signed up with Lifelock and are unhappy with their service or guarantee or just want further info on the class action you can contact David Paris at Marks & Klein, (732)-747-7100.

I almost wish I had signed up for Lifelock so I could get involved.

The practice of scoping out current and potential employees online has become pervasive enough that many people (myself included) have recommended that people be far more selective about what they post online.

Well, at least one person is calling out the real issue here: that employers are looking in the first place. Her advice is for everyone to tell their employers to "butt out".

we job seekers and defenders of civil liberties should tell employers to stop snooping and stop judging our behavior outside of work. What we do, say and believe in our personal lives in most cases has no bearing on our ability to do a job, barring criminal behavior, of course.

And I agree with this. We should all stand up for the fact that many of the things we express online have little bearing on our ability to do a job, though I think we need to be realistic and still control the information we post to the best of our ability.

Today I found a link to Best Buy's recycling program on Lifehacker. Not only do they accept some items in-store, they have a trade-in program for "gently used" electronics and contact info for where to dispose of stuff you can't take to them. It's an interesting read.

A while back, I was educated on the various ways that Gamestop is one of the worst businesses in the world (either as a customer or an employee). Now here's more evidence of how rotten they are in the form of how they screw their own employees out of their paychecks using a fee-loaded "pay card" system.

Obama's administration is calling for a cap of $500000 per year maximum for any executive of a company that's receiving federal bail-out money. So, if you suck at your job and had to ask the government for a handout, you can't be making bonuses and millions per year. They must be so sad.

Read about it at the New York Times.

(H/T to The Consumerist for the link)

When forced by California law to make electric cars available, GM made advertisements for their electric car that bring to mind such warm and fuzzy feelings as death, dismemberment, and horror.

You don't have to have a PhD psychology to figure out that they were trying to scare consumers away from buying electric cars.

Don't take my word for it, see for yourself:

It's the deliberate attempts by US auto companies to halt any type of innovation that could possibly lead to lower profits that made me say that the bailouts were completely bogus. We should have let them die or at least forced them to do good business through stiff regulation.

If you're treated badly at a store, it might be worth buying something from the offending employee solely for the reason of getting a receipt with their employee identification. Then take the survey listed on the receipt and explain the situation in the comments. For Best Buy at least, you can click a checkbox to have the management contact you.

They finally gave up and will work with ISPs to just send notices to people who appear to be sharing files.