Threat to privacy and loyalty reward schemes
Sun 14 Jun 2009Filed Under: Other Topics | Comments Off on Threat to privacy and loyalty reward schemes
Everyone is concerned about privacy due to the continual rise of identity theft.
Consider this: IF you belong to a store’s ‘loyalty’ program such as the FLYBUYS card (or any other scheme you care to mention) you must be aware that the company now owns your personal details and can imitate you! Bonanza for any hacker!
Every time you link your purchases with any ‘rewards’ card or any other ‘rewards’ scheme you’re telling them what you’re buying the brands your buying where you live, how much you earn, what you do for a living, where you kids go to school, where you go for holidays even what car you drive and yes the toilet paper or condom you use.
I find companies having this power unnerving since they DO sell this information to other entities with possibly vague relationships. They won’t disclose this information back to you either unless you actual pay for it!
I want FULL and FREE publicly audited disclosure of who, what, when, justification, how much they paid! for your personal information. After all these associated companies have their own often vague ‘Privacy Policies’. There does not appear to be any legislation to protect the consumer in this regard! I want more information on what they do and the current situation is not acceptable.
Their terms and conditions seem to assume you are the criminal! rather and avoiding their real responsibility! Read any one of their condition and its obvious.
Financial institutions such as banks and other finance companies are so regulated and have they less personal information than these companies so there should be similar regulations if not more – it is only fair!
So until then the answer is don’t sign up to one.
These are not genuine loyalty schemes or rewards it’s about them making for more money and holding your identity as ransom. It is not money for nothing. Your identity is worth more than a pathetic few frequent flyer points.
I wonder whether the media will pick on this?
BBC news touches on the subject – are they part of the problem? : BBC News
Although not an Government supported site this has an intereting article: Threat or Reward?
POTM for May 2009
Sat 6 Jun 2009Filed Under: *Hayabusa BLOG, POTM Winners | Comments Off on POTM for May 2009
This page is for voting and comments.
no images were found
The POTM winner for May 2009 is Anton from South Africa!
I say this is excellent modded motorcycle. It looks great and the mods to to make it work well too. The matched headlight protector is a very nice touch. Check out gallery 16 for more pictures and details!
[poll id=”3″]
Note: Be nice these owners have spent a lot of time customizing their bikes. If you don’t think it’s any good then prove to me and everyone else by sending a picture of yours.
The comment feature below is moderated by various automatic filters – it may take awhile before they appear. It may not be working yet…
The best computer – Introduction
Fri 5 Jun 2009Filed Under: Anti-virus software, Apple Computers, Computers, VMware Fusion, Windows Vista | Comments Off on The best computer – Introduction
It’s that time of the year in certain parts of the world that have a end of financial year of 30 June. From May onwards you’ll start to see retailers offering a variety of specials. Fortunately I have managed to synchronize all my hardware purchases and software licenses to expire at the start of the new financial and as a result can par take in annual ritual of updating or changing various pieces of software. Yes tend to buy any new computer hardware at this time of the year!
I current have two Apple Mac computers a Vista PC and a bits and pieces PC accumulated over the years which I regularly use. The bits and pieces PC is the main PC I use for trialling out new software like freebies and operating systems like Linux basically anything that comes on a magazine’s free DVD or something I found on the internet.
However if you’ve been keeping up with this section of the BLOG you’ll know that I now run VMWare Fusion on the Apple Mac’s to create virtual PCs running windows – or any other OS that I need. The setup has proven it’s self reliable and flexible. All the software I’ve installed on the virtual PCs work perfectly or specifically as well as they did on a standard box PC. So I’ve finally decided that the Vista PC, bits and pieces machine, the the very old Mac Mini will be decommissioned. That’s a job for Ebay…
The caveat is that games don’t run very well or not at all on the virtual PCs purely because my particular Macbook I have does not have a dedicated Graphics card. Of course this will be fixed when I get a new Mac with a dedicated graphics card.
So I’m in the market for a new Apple Mac of decent specification so I can run multiple virtual Windows PCs when required. I figure that a 5 year life span and using free and paid software including anti-virus software I can actually save money? Apple does not offer real discounts on their computers but retailers often have packages but often not compelling enough – nonetheless I shall see.
I’m a supporter of free software – afterall I make free stuff as well but I also support paying for legitimate software. Basically if you don’t pay for it the companies go broke and you won’t get new stuff. So I buy software if its better than free offerings. I always install the trail version first to make sure it will work so should you.