Checking Out Online Consumer Services
Big brands not necessarily interested in protecting your privacy.
March 2008
by Kristjan Butler
In the grey and shadowy world of threats to your internet security, it’s not always the greasy back-alley crooks who are the only ones to watch out for. In fact, sometimes it’s the big players and mega corporations whose view of protecting your privacy may be very different from your own.
A quick look at some recent news items about this topic (see links at the end of this article) may open your eyes and convince you to do your homework before joining that marketing program or clicking ‘Accept’ on that service agreement.
As boring and yawn-inducing as it may be most of the time, it is really worth your while to actually read thru service agreements and privacy policies. If you are expected to agree to a policy when contracting new services or purchasing new products online, you might as well know what you are agreeing to. And in some cases, you really ought to know, because you may decide to decline when you discover the details.
This is especially the case if you are shopping for things that you don’t actually need as opposed to those that you do.
I.e. if you are looking to get a new cell phone or internet service provider, you may not have much choice in what you agree to. But at the same time, these kinds of agreements for utility services are often highly regulated by the law of the land and the providers are not nearly as likely to breach your privacy. The phone company itself is not going to tap your phone, after all.
However, if you are shopping for consumer goods and services, connecting with friends thru social networking, or signing up for a ‘customer benefits’ program, you really do need to make an informed decision.
In fact, in many cases with these services – even when provided by large and otherwise trustworthy corporations – you may be agreeing to have your activities tracked or your information used in ways that are questionable. What’s worse, is that in many cases you may even be agreeing to have their corporate spyware loaded onto your computer.
Strangely though perhaps predictably, this kind of invasion of your privacy is most likely to occur in the area of legal, paid multimedia downloading services. It is common knowledge that using illegal downloading services is risky due to the prevalence of viruses, spyware and other malware lurking on free, illegal download sites. So, it is an easy assumption that using a paid service would be safe and free of privacy concerns.
But even though you’ve agreed to pay and are a good citizen, many paid download providers still don’t trust you and want to track what you do with their copyrighted materials by forcing you to agree to their snooping.
This kind of corporate snooping can also be the case with other types of services, including special ‘membership’ and other types of ‘customer benefits’ programs, such as loyalty and discount programs.
So, it really is worth doing your homework to protect your privacy and security online. Some excellent resources for digging up info about the intentions of particular companies or their specific services can be found on websites such as Arstechnica.com, Digg.com, Boingboing.net and Reddit.com.
Here are some recent articles posted on their sites about this topic. These articles include information about well-known companies that may surprise you and convince you to do your homework when shopping for online consumer services in the future.
Securosis.com
http://securosis.com/2006/11/26/are-consumer-drm-and-consumer-security-compatible/
Arstechnica.com e.g. article:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080102-sears-come-see-the-softer-side-of-spyware.html
Fortiguard e.g. article:
http://www.fortiguardcenter.com/advisory/FGA-2007-16.html