Random Thoughts of Mine...

E-tailers snagged in marketing 'scam' blame customers

First, the good news for consumers: the U.S. government's investigation into how dozens of well-known online stores worked with controversial marketers to "deceive" customers out of $1.4 billion has prompted some retailers, including Continental Airlines, to sever ties with the marketers.

Now, the bad news: the marketers--Affinion, Vertrue, and Webloyalty--are still in business and judging from the responses of many of the retailers involved, such as Priceline, Classmates.com, FTD, Shutterfly, and Orbitz, it will be business as usual. They see nothing wrong with the marketing practices that millions of angry online shoppers and members of the U.S. Senate have called a "scam," "robbery" and "theft."

While the U.S. Senate Commerce committee produced a staggering amount of documentation during a hearing last week that appears to show consumers are misled into signing up for so-called loyalty programs, the retailers continue to suggest it's their customers who are at fault.

The controversy began last May, when the Commerce committee launched an investigation into the practices employed by Vertrue, Affinion, and Webloyalty. The committee's investigators found thousands of complaints going back years from people who said they discovered "mysterious charges" on their credit cards and struggled to discover how they got there.

McAfee warns about '12 Scams of Christmas'

Retailers aren't the only ones gearing up for the holiday season. Criminals are also out in force.

To highlight the increased crime during the holidays, security company McAfee has come up with the "12 Scams of Christmas" ranging from bogus electronic greeting cards that deliver malware instead of cheer to fake charities that steal your money and your identity.

It's especially important to be extra careful this time of year, says McAfee's David Marcus. "The bad guys know people are spending more time online, they're paying more bills online so [the criminals] stand a chance of being a bit more successful this time of year.

In a podcast interview (scroll down to listen), Marcus counted down the 12 scams of Christmas starting with:

1. Charitable phishing scams: Marcus warns consumers to be wary of e-mails that appear to be from legitimate charities. Not only will they take your money and deprive charities of needed funds, but they will also steal your credit card information and identity.

2. Fake invoices from delivery services: During this period, scammers will send out fake invoices and delivery notifications appearing to come from Federal Express, UPS, the U.S. Postal Service or even the U.S. Customs Service saying that they were unable to deliver a package to your address. They ask you to confirm your address and give them credit card information to pay for delivery.

3. Social networking friend requests: Bad guys take advantage of this social time of year by sending out authentic looking friend requests via e-mail. Marcus recommends that you not click on those links but sign into Facebook and other services and look for friend requests from the site itself. Clicking on a link could install malware on your computer or trick you into revealing your password.

'Throw shoes at Bush' games appear online
Therapeutic, great fun

THROWING SHOES at US President George W. Bush has suddenly become a very popular online game. Or games, actually, because at least two have turned up on the Internet so far.

Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zeidi punctuated a press briefing in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone by throwing his shoes at US President George W. Bush last Sunday, December 14th. Bush successfully ducked the flying footwear, but the moment was captured on video.

Facing the soles of your shoes toward anyone's face, striking them with your shoe soles, or throwing your shoes at them are considered to be grave insults in Arabic cultures. All Arabs regard streets and, by extension, shoe soles as unclean, and view being struck by shoe soles as a form of extreme disrespect. Iraqi al-Zeidi's action was thus an act of outraged protest.

He shouted at Bush, "Here is the farewell kiss you DOG! This is from Widows and Orphans and those killed in Irag! YOU are responsible for the Deaths of THOUSANDS of Iraqis!"

Miro is our core project. It's a free open-source desktop video application that is designed to make mass media more open and accessible for everyone.

Television is the most popular medium in our culture. But broadcast and cable TV has always been controlled by a small number of big corporations. We believe that the internet provides an opportunity to open television in ways that have never been possible before.

Miro is designed to eliminate gatekeepers. Viewers can connect to any video provider that they want. This frees creators to use the video hosting setup that works best for them-- whether they choose to self-publish or use a service. It's the kind of openness that the internet allows and that we should all demand.

In March, 15-year-old Joshua Brumfield got a shiny new BlackBerry Pearl, and his parents got a new way to watch out for their son.

The Brumfields signed up to be early users of Radar, software designed to let parents monitor incoming calls on their child's mobile phone. Anytime Joshua gets a call from someone not on a call list approved by his parents, they will receive a real-time text alert on their cell phone or online.

For example, during the first two days on the phone, Joshua got six calls from a stranger within a few hours--and the Brumfields got six text alerts. So they asked Joshua about the calls, and he told them they were from a man looking for his ex-girlfriend who didn't believe that her number had changed. The stranger had grown more aggressive with each call, thinking that Joshua was a new boyfriend.

"Radar really helped us see this was definitely a problem, one our son wouldn't have said anything about," said Lisa Brumfield, a Laguna Hills, Calif., mother of three boys. Joshua's father called the man to straighten out the situation.

As science and religion often spar over issues of physics and faith, there's a great deal of physical evidence that shows how the history of life may have evolved quite differently than generally accepted anthropological and geological theories have described.


The examples of artifacts that describe various oddities of science collected in this interesting About.com article will, no doubt, amaze you. What follows is a sampling of these wonderful archeological finds.

As your interest grows, click on the link below for the entire list.
A battery found in Baghdad that's at least 2,000 years old.
Ceremonial burial stones as much as 1,500 years old that display etchings of dinosaurs and, even more strangely, open-heart surgery.
Artifacts from Central America and ancient Egypt that look like modern airplanes.
The discovery of hundreds of stone disks made as long as 12,000 years ago that resemble ancient vinyl records, complete with spiral grooves.