privacy policy or the lack of it
3 Comments A few months ago I signed up for a SharedReviews beta account. The idea behind the site is to get solid reviews of products and pay the community 50/50 on certain revenue. Sounds pretty cool huh? Well it may be but as I was signing up I came across the privacy policy. Usually I just breeze through it but I decided to read this one.
“We protect your privacy with a passion!”
First, I want to say that I think ShareReviews is a cool site and I hope their business model works out. However, the privacy policy was kind of weird. It was actually amusing. Why do sites even have privacy policies? They should just come out and say “Yea, we’ll use your information for whatever we damn well please.” Below are some lines right of the policy.
“For the purposes of this policy, “Personal Information” means any information about you except your business title, address, e-mail address, telephone number or facsimile number. It also does not include your home address and telephone number if these are published in a telephone or other directory, and does not include any Review, content or other materials that you post or submit to use for possible publication. “
Umm….so what else is there? What exactly is private then?
“We do not sell your Personal Information to third parties. We may share some or all of your Personal Information with our third party business partners”
Hmmm ok. I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s a “review” site and to make money they are probably selling data. For that data to be worth anything they have to include user data with it. So why throw in the line about “we protect your privacy with a passion.” Half the business model is actually based upon doing the exact opposite.
Most users caring less is the worst part. We’ll go crazy if a telemarketer calls our house but we don’t blink while registering for a new site. Personally, I’m not against a website data mining to show relevant ads. Let’s take facebook for example. They will look at your profile and use that to display an advertisement. An advertiser will pay more to know that their ad is getting to their target demographic. I’m fine with that. I’m going to see an ad anyway, might as well see one that I might actually like. That’s how Google makes all their money.
What I don’t like is when companies sell information they collect. To me thats like selling hot pictures your ex girlfriend took for you. The ones she would dress up like a tiger and act like she is…ok getting off topic. The pictures were meant for you not the public or your favorite “rate this chick” website. Just because you don’t care about her anymore doesn’t mean you should go and sell something she wouldn’t want sold. However, let’s say you analyze the pictures. After hours of analyzing, and frequent naps, you say to yourself “hey i bet she would really like this lingerie site.” You contact her the usual way you two communicate and let her know that you are an affiliate for an animal lingerie site. Nothing wrong with that, right?
Here at BadPopcorn, Inc. H.Q.
2 Comments Welcome to the inagural post from Badpopcorn H.Q.
Located in the relaxed heart of Old Town Orange California. BadPopcorn now has a home.
Here is our lovely view of…a relatively generic street.
That thing to Ben’s left is still hanging there…I don’t believe any of us like it…but there were theories floated the it might be there for luck…and who are we to risk bad luck.
First day of work at the new office.
First meeting in the new office.
The weeks, and months ahead will be chock-full of planning, collaborating, and lots of other things, most of which will involve looking longingly into a screen and typing away on keyboards like the feet of a shirtless Irish folk dancer…from the nineties. Except we’ll all be wearing our shirts…and it’s not the nineties…and it’s fingers on keyboards…look there’s going to be lots of fast typing.
More Updates to Come…
Be the Clutter
Comments Off I watched Frontline’s episode entitled The Persuaders last night. Its synopsis explains the documentary more than I ever could.
But the big point I wanted to mention is that the program had suggested that “we become the persuaders” in order to get rid of the clutter of advertising. It is an interesting thought that we empower ourselves to talk about only the things we care about– to take charge about our culture and life. However, this is a message that advertisers have been bombarding us with already– “individuals (YOU) feel empowered (and fulfilled) when buying the advertiser’s product”. So if we were to actually empower ourselves by becoming the persuaders, then wouldn’t we become the clutter itself? Isn’t there a better way, like not persuading at all? And isn’t this a bit ironic since my blog is, itself, a tool of (self-empowering) persuation?
Toys R Us
Comments Off “I don’t want to grow up, cause if I did I wouldn’t be a Toys R Us Kid”
Well guess what, your kids wont’ be Toys R Us kids. They will be Wall Mart bitches!
The only Monopoly that Toys “R” Us holds these days is on its shelves. The company is still one of the world’s largest toy retailers, but it has lost its #1 US position to Wal-Mart. Toys “R” Us sells its wares through about 1,500 stores in the US and abroad, and Web sites (run by Amazon.com). In addition to about 680 US namesake stores selling toys, games, and other items for kids, Toys “R” Us sells infant and toddler apparel, furniture, and feeding supplies at some 215 Babies “R” Us stores. The company closed its Kids “R” Us children’s clothing stores in 2004. Tough times in toyland led to the acquisition of Toys “R” Us by two private equity firms and a real estate company for about $6.6 billion in mid-2005.
I got this off the yahoo finance site.
Name Squatting… Still Big Money?
1 Comment Well, not the point of the post, but here’s a choice fact:
a company called Ultsearch that made money gobbling up expired domains. Ultsearch would scan the registries for expiring domains, snatching those domains with a descent level of search engine traffic and then turning the domain into advertiser sponsored links. This garbage collection activity netted the owner a mind boggling $164.2 million when it was acquired late last year.
Wow.