Immoral Marketing Scam? simple.net and yp.com

I keep getting checks sent to me from simple.net and yp.com, typically for about $2 or $3, that contain "fine print" on the back. Today's check from yp.com states "by depositing this check into my account I agree to pay $27.50 per month . . ." They further state that they can tack the fees to my phone bill or automatically withdraw them from my bank account. EXCUSE ME - NO YOU ^^@&^@#^ CANNOT!!

I think this is an immoral marketing scam, and should probably be illegal. Maybe it is! Who do these scumbags think they are?? I'm sure many businesses see a check, and automatically deposit it.

What do you think? Feel free to call yp.com at 1-800-300-3209 and let them know!

To: customercare@yp.com
From: Ted Demopoulos
Subject: Remove me from your mailing list

To Whom it may concern,

Remove 20 Tall Pines Road, Durham NH 03824 from your mailing list immediately.

I consider your mailing to be immoral and disgusting,

Ted

Dilbert Blog, Mongolia, and President Bush

I'm quite fond of the relatively new Dilbert Blog by Scott Adams.

In particular I liked this post.
Apparently Prez Bush is the first sitting US President to ever visit Mongolia. Scott Adams claims that is because there are no chairs in Mongolia. 'It's a little known fact that the name Ghengis Khan means "I'm serious man, I need a chair,"' claims Adams.

For the record, I'm fond of Mongolia and Mongolians. I've spoken to Mongolians in Mongolia as recently as 40 hours ago (ham radio) although have not yet visited.

Mabbott, and old drinking and fishing buddy, did visit and love Mongolia recently. As he primarily went for a multi-day white water rafting and fishing trip, I doubt he could have seen many chairs if they exist at all.

I'll try to have him comment on this post as to whether chairs exist in Mongolia and their popularity if any. I can tell you that Marlboros are very cheap but mainly counterfeit. Perhaps the chairs are too??

Aluminum foil beanies: MIT study refuted

I recently posted on the MIT study on the effectiveness of aluminum foil hats at preventing radio signals from being beamed into your head here. They found that aluminum foil hats, including the classical "Tin Foil conforming to head shape" style, the Fez, and the Centurion, basically didn't work.

The results have been recently refuted by Zapato Productions, who question both the experimental protocol, and characterize the study as "propaganda designed to spread FUD against deflector beanie technology, and aluminum shielding in general, in order to disembeanie paranoids, leaving them open to mind control."

They raise some interesting questions, such as why if the study claimed they used Reynolds aluminum foil, a premium brand, is there a roll of Chef's Pride brand visible in one of their pictures?

Also as they convincingly argue, it is hard to believe that paranoids who worry about signals beamed into their heads should trust people working for an organization deeply involved in the Military-Industrial Complex, i.e. MIT, which receives funding from DARPA.

I suggest you read the reports yourself.

You may also want to visit The Aluminum Deflector Beanie website for more information.

"Blogging for Business" cover done

My Blogging for Business book's cover is done and displayed in the upper right hand corner of the blog. There may be some minor colortone changes, but it's pretty much done.

Authors, in this case myself and co-author Shel Holtz, have little to do with their book covers. The publisher designs the cover and basically says "Here it is." In our case they also asked "do you like it?" Since authors are typically not "book cover designers" nor graphic designers, this makes perfect sense. Publishers have designed lots of covers and are hopefully good at it.

There is also a new subtitle, which appears at the top of the cover: Everything you need to know and why you should care. I like it. Our editor came up with two great subtitles and we settled on this one.

Now Shel and I just need to finished reviewing the edits, track down some permissions for screenshots we're using, check the page layouts when they're done, and probably a long list of other stuff before we actually see the physical printed book, although it's seeming more real now.

I journalist asked what I was going to do when the book was done. I replied, "Take a loooong nap" :)

NH E-ZPass Privacy Problems Update

New Hampshire E-ZPass stores user's private information with no privacy protections.

I wrote earlier about the New Hampshire E-ZPass System and its privacy issues here

About TWO MONTHS after submitting questions by filling out an online form, the ONLY method of contacting them publicized, I received a phone call back from a lady whose name was unintelligible, and who was NOT credible, on my voice mail.

Allegedly a court order is required to access the data E-ZPass stores - this I believe. She claims that E-ZPass does not store information about who passed through which tolls and when, i.e. who was where when. Well, this is not credible. E-ZPass is not a NH creation, and does store this information in other states. In fact, people have lost their jobs and suffered other adverse effects when EZ-Pass showed they were not where they claimed to be.

I have no reason to hide where I am and when, but the government also has no right to have a record of my whereabouts. E-Z Pass can in fact track you ANYWHERE - not just at tolls. Oh, and there's no way to turn it off. And at least in New Hampshire, they are unresponsive as hell!!

I didn't follow up with a return phone call.

If anyone would like to follow up, I've got names and phone numbers of the people in ultimate charge and will gladly share. Send me an email - no I'm not posting them, they have some right to privacy too!

An Interesting Business Model

I went to a great restaurant, Roberts of Charleston, with a very interesting business model. They were only open three nights a week – Thurs to Sat nights, had one seating only – at 7:30PM, and only a set menu. To further simplify things they included wine, so there was no need for a wine list, sommelier, or wine cellar.

The restaurant was great, had a prime location, and had been around for a while. As far as I could tell it was a very succesful business.

Imagine a business model like this in other areas:

A plumber who only installs sinks, and only on Mon, Tues, and Weds at 9:30 AM

A keynote speaker who only speaks on one topic and only on Friday, Saturdays or Sundays (hmmm, sounds like a moonlighter, i.e. someone with a different full time job).

An executive coach who only accepts clients between 35-45 in high tech, and will only schedule coaching sessions Weds at 1PM, Friday at 4PM, or Monday at 9AM.

Obviously from the examples above this would only work well in certain spaces. The plumber I guess would have trouble, the keynote speaker might be OK, and the executive coach had better be well established. If you could have such control over your business schedule it would be wonderful however!

Oh, Robert the Chef also serenaded his diners with opera. He sang quite well, and perhaps to show he didn’t take himself too seriously performed a great Italian operatic version of “Home on The Range.” (I’m glad my plumber doesn’t sing!).

Evil Sony Recalls 5 Million CDs

I'm a Sony fan, but their recent actions can only be described as "Evil" - with a capital E.

Sony released about 5 million CDs, that they are now recalling, which contain copy protection software that can be accurately described as spyware as well as a rootkit. These include CDs with music from Neil Diamond, Cyndi Lauper, Ricky Martin and many others.

Most everyone has heard of spyware. I define a rootkit as software that takes over control of a computer and "cloaks" or hides itself. Rootkits are used by criminals and hackers - I know of no other use. Sony's act is criminal and is being prosecuted in at least one jurisdiction so far.

This rootkit automatically installed itself on computers of purchasers of these CDs and exposed the infected machines to numerous problems, including (other) hacker attacks and the machine itself failing.

It a bizarre twist of Sony's incompetence, apparently there are copyright violations in Sony's rootkit itself, as it allegedly includes code they have no license or right to use.

The best writeup I've seen, not surprisingly, is on Bruce Schneiers weblog.

Legitimate Offers and Phishing

I just got a seemingly legit email offer for a Yahoo! Titanium Visa Card.

We'll ignore the fact that I do not want more credit cards (cash is king!) and I sincerely doubt it is made of titanium, or even bismuth, another pretty shiny metal.

What's important is that I immediately assumed this email was a phishing scam! It seems legit though. I have a MyYahoo! account and I've authorized them to occasionally spam - errr, email me, and I don't mind. But due to the plethora of phishing emails I receive, I immediately assumed it was sent by a criminal attempting to defraud me!

A sad state of affairs, but if almost every financial offer you receive is an attempt at robbing you, or almost everyone who approaches you on the street wants to take something from you, you get pretty paranoid.

I started out paranoid. Paranoid, yet friendly. I'm less friendly now. I do NOT give emails the benefit of the doubt - it's simply impractical.

Phishing has an concrete negative impact on ecommerce that goes beyond the money stolen: consumers, i.e. most Internet users, are less likely to engage in legitimate activity due to very "reasonable" paranoia.

My USA Today Article on Internet Governance

Here is the full text of my USA Today article, of which they have graciously allowed me to retain copyright. I do regret only having 350 words and two hours to sketch my views. Remember that Internet Governance "ain't broke" and any changes need to be slow and well thought out, and no, I don't believe the U.N. or any other politicized or bureaucratic group should be in charge!

Govern 'Net globally

The Internet is a worldwide resource, and governance needs to be international. Today, the United States oversees the Internet because of historic reasons. Internet governance is one of the key issues to be discussed at the U.N. World Summit on the Information Society, which starts Wednesday in Tunisia, and debate will be contentious. (See USA Today's viewpoint here)

Currently, the U.S.-backed Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers controls the Internet. ICANN is authorized for this purpose by the U.S. Department of Commerce. ICANN governs the Internet through its control of all top-level Internet domain names, such as usatoday.com, and Internet addresses. ICANN has been controversial since its inception,
although it does a good job.

There are valid arguments for U.S. control of the Internet. The United States essentially "invented" the Internet by funding its early development and hence controls it. These historic reasons are understandable, but they are not valid moving forward.

The Internet has fundamentally changed. A little over a decade ago, it was U.S.-centric and entirely non-commercial. Today, its scope is truly international, and its economic importance is enormous and growing.

Internet history has little bearing on current and future realities. There are certainly dangers of over-bureaucratization if an international body assumes governance. Last month, I decided to get a new Internet domain name, and within 10 minutes I was able to check on availability and buy the domain for less than $20. Will this be possible in the future if the U.N. or anyone else is in charge? This is an open question, but these same dangers exist with the current U.S. governance because of the Internet's rapid growth.

It is the height of arrogance for the United States to insist on maintaining control of the Internet. The Internet is global in impact and use. It is tied more every day to worldwide commerce. The United States could just as well demand that the world denominate all financial transactions in dollars, try to cure cancer by outlawing it, or claim Uranus as sovereign territory; all are absurd.

Ted Demopoulos is a 25-year veteran of the Internet and co-author of "Blogging for Business," a forthcoming book on the next wave of the information revolution.

Keeping Radio Signals out of Your Head

A common paranoia seems to involve radio signals being beamed into your head. Sometimes the fear is aliens and sometimes it's the US government. Sometimes the fear is even that the signals are beamed FROM your head, perhaps by a secret implanted transmitter.

A team of four men from MIT's Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department and Media Laboratory, devised a series of experiments to determine if the commonly held notion (among the paranoid) that tin foil helmets could shield the head was valid. They used over US$250,000 of equipment and a well planned experimental protocol.

The study seems legit. They experimented with three types of helmets: the classical "Tin Foil conforming to head shape" style, the Fez, and the Centurion.

Results? Well, lets just say these helmet types don't work very well. Quoting the study, they "encourage the paranoid community to develop improved helmet designs to avoid falling prey to these shortcomings."

The study is here available here.

Internet Governance (Control)

Internet Governance, ICANN, and WSIS

There is a great article in USA Today on Internet Control, or "Governance." The USA basically invented the Internet through funding its early research, and now controls it through the non-profit, yet US sanctioned, ICANN. The article, which I agree with almost entirely, states "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Well, it ain't broke, but it's changing so rapidly that we need to deal with the change and sticking our heads in the sand isn't a big help!

I wrote the opposing view, which I'll probably post here in its entirety later (USA Today willing). It's available here: Ted Demopoulos' USA Today article on Internet Control.

Why is this news? The U.N. World Summit on the Information Society, WSIS, starts tomorrow in Tunisia, and the world is not too happy about the U.S. refusing to relinquish control.

What will happen? Well, if I were a betting man, and somewhere where bets were being taken, I'd bet that ICANN will keep control, but be denationalized. Although their mere existence is contentious, ICANN has done a good job of Internet Governance. Why "change it if it ain't broke?" Well, at very least, we'll need to evolve it. The Internet is a worldwide resource and its governance needs to be International. And let's do our best to keep the bureaucrats out!

The Ted Demopoulos Interview

I had a great interview last week with Michael McCord, the Business Editor for The Portsmouth Herald, an extremely good local newspaper owned by Dow Jones.

The Interview and a picture are available here.

I've had a lot of interviews lately, and this was a truly enjoyable one. First of all, I think I interview pretty well, at least in part because I like to talk. I don't talk "off record" because I also know when to keep my mouth shut, at least usually, so I tend to be relaxed (wouldn't talking "off record" to someone whose job is to produce a record - an article - be obnoxious?). A relaxed interview is more enjoyable.

What else makes for an enjoyable interview? Well, I think an interesting interviewer helps a lot. You CAN have an great interview from a boring interviewer, but it's not particularly fun. Michael is an enjoyable and interesting interviewer. He has obviously done this a lot before. He also let me turn the tables and interview him as well at the end, which I really enjoyed.

As an added plus, he even spelled my last name right! Now that doesn't happen all the time . . .

Yes, There is a Free Lunch (at Google)

Rumors abound that it is super easy to walk into the Google cafeteria and get a free lunch!

Now Google Cafeteria is nothing like Google Blog Search, or Google Earth, or Google fill-in-the-blank. It's the actual cafeteria where Google employees and guests get free food - supposedly very good food.

The best writeup I've seen is at TechCrunch (where despite their name they do not concentrate only on food for techies).

Allegedly many of the "free lunchers" sneaking in are Yahoo! employees :)

Not everyone agrees it is simple to do, but clearly it is illegal! I'd hate to be arrested for suck a silly prank. Lots of interesting, silly, spam, and obscene comments too.

Squidoo & "Everyone's an Expert, Seth Godin

Everyone's an Expert (about something), #3 and final free ebook in a series by Seth Godin

Hold on to your hat - Seth's promoting something in this one. Yes, he has an agenda, but that makes it no less interesting, insightful, or a quick/fast/easy read.

On the Internet, today's version, Search Engines don't do a great job. Yes, they are pretty fantastic at finding things, BUT, we are not usually searching for something, at least not initially. When we first start researching a subject, we are on "a quest to make sense." There is no "right" answer to our search, and besides, the top hits are usually trying to sell us something. We might be interested in buying, but not UNTIL what we are researching makes sense to us.

Let's say I decide I absolutely must have a "three handled moss covered family grudunza." I don't know much about them, except Dr. Suess' Cat in the Hat seemed quite fond of his, and I've been convinced! Well, I'm not going to buy, no matter what Google et all return to me. I want information first! After some research, perhaps soul searching, and maybe balancing my checkbook, I might be ready to buy.

Now if My Uncle Thermador says, "Nephew, you need to buy a ZXy12.3 Jr three handled moss covered family grudunza with the lint free option," I might be able to skip the "quest for sense." Or if my agent, the unimitable Wendy Keller says, "just get the hot pink one made by CDSCorp and you can't go wrong - it's reliable and your style," I'm also all set.

Word of mouth - it solves my problem! But do we really have word of mouth on the Web? Well, sort of, but not in any organized and easily accesible way.

Squidoo is a company with an answer: "Lenses." Lenses are simple websites built by opinionated experts (any other kind) like Uncle Thermador that don't contain much material, but which have links to LOTS of useful information. For example, a Lense on three handled moss covered family grudunzas (let's just call them THMCFGs), would have links to all the sources the Lense's author would think are most valuable on THMCFG. A Lense is just a simple Website, just like a Blog is just a simple Website. A Lense has a specific format and layout, just as blogs are all pretty similar in format and layout.

If I find a Lense, and like it, as I like and trust Uncle Thermador and Agent Wendy Keller, I probably won't even follow many of the links as "word of mouth will take over."

Here is a sample Lense, of the Bald One himself, Seth Godin.
Here are a few more examples.

Why create Lenses??? Many reasons and I'll just list a few:

1) Because you are PASSIONATE. You love THMCFGs, or whatever, and want to share your enthusiam.

2) You like money. You can run Google ads, affiliate links, etc. on your Lense or your collection of a few hundred Lenses for profit.

3) You want to promote something - like yourself (Ted Demopoulos is cool. Check out these links), your company (hire demop.com - we rule), your book (Blogging for Business will make you more intelligent and attractive), etc.

Why Squidoo? Why not just create a simple website as described above, and if it's a great resource on THMCFG or whatever, the search engines will (eventually) rate it highly and send traffic your way. Why Squidoo? One reason; they make building Lenses easy.

Check out the eBook here, and report back please.

In beta now, and yes I did sign up.

Microsoft announces support for Privacy Laws

Microsoft announces support for US Government laws to protect the privacy of individuals.

Microsoft has become increasingly pro-privacy, and this furthers that stance. Yes, of course there are good business reasons for Microsoft to do this, including to promote online commerce and to avoid dealing with a patchwork of local laws, but that doesn't diminish its value!

No surprise that privacy is a big concern. Just about every business from the local healthclub, to supermarket, to every governmental agency seems to demand personal information. Want 15 cents a pound off chicken? You need an identifying card. Want to exercise? Better have an ID ready. Opening a PO Box? Two forms of ID, proof of residence, and who knows what else. And of course all this information goes into databases.

Criminals like user data. They can steal your identity, abuse your credit cards, get new credit cards and loans under your name, etc., if they can just get enough information about you.

Begin Rant:
Governments like user data. They like to keep tight tabs on their citizens and everyone else under the often mistaken guise of national security.

My data belongs to me, not you, Shop and Save, World Gym, or the Post Office. Certainly not my cellphone provider, my children's school, or anyone else. And sorry, but it's not any of the Government's business if I spend my vacations in Aruba, Hong Kong, or the Middle East either, nor how often and when I drive down the highway
End Rant.

While Microsoft's proposals fall short of my "My data belongs to me rant," it is the first logical and a necessary step. In short, they propose the following four core principals:

• Create a baseline standard across all organizations and industries for offline and online data collection and storage.
• Increase transparency regarding the collection, use and disclosure of personal information.
• Provide meaningful levels of control over the use and disclosure of personal information.
• Ensure a minimum level of security for personal information in storage and transit.

Bravo to Microsoft!

Thanks to Bruce Schneier for bringing this to my attention. His comments are here, and as he states,"The devil is in the details."

Recent Phishing Attacks

Phishing attacks are emails and other electronic communications that try to trick you into revealing personal information such as account numbers, passwords, social security numbers, etc. This info is then used for credit card fraud, identity theft and other crimes.

The latest two phishing attacks I had were emails with the following titles:

Please Update Your Amazon Account !
Ebay Inc. Annual Update of Records

A recent survey on phishing I did on how aware and vigilant average users were showed most people were essentially clueless and easy targets. It generated a lot of interest, including press and emails.

One thing people have repeated asked me for is a list of recent phishing attacks. There are so many and they change so rapidly it's not realistic for an individual to keep up with a list, although I did find one my friends at Internet Identity maintain. They shift through OVER one million emails a day looking for Phishing attacks and you can see the list here.

What would be more useful to individuals (and as comedian Steve Martin says, "Repeat after me, 'We are all individuals.'") is a short list of how to protect yourself from phishing attacks.

I'm going to write one soon - once the smoke clears, I'm kind of busy now finishing up my Blogging for Business book (due in February, although I need to finish everything much much sooner).

Book Review: Ultimate Guide to Electronic Marketing, Tom Antion

The Ultimate Guide to Electronic Marketing for Small Business, Low-Cost/High Return Tools and Techniques that Really Work, by Tom Antion

Anyone in business, who has a website, is thinking about having one, wonders why some websites work and some don’t, or has any interest in Internet commerce should buy The Ultimate Guide by Tom Antion.

Most websites, quite frankly, suck. They might be beautiful and artful at best, but they are “brochure-wear” – mine originally was. It replaced the need for a paper brochure, and like a brochure, almost no one read it. Certainly random web surfers and searchers, no matter how interested they might have been, rarely found it. I gradually got my site working like an effective website should, and it’s getting better fast with this book’s help. I wish I had The Ultimate Guide years ago when I launched my site!

Tom breaks his strategy into three prongs, and even if you are interested in only one or two this book has enough value that you probably need it.

Prong #1: Build a great website. A great website, among other things, is ones the search engines love and send you people who will be happy to find it.

Prong #2: Build an email list of people who want to hear from you. Periodically send them things of value, for example a useful ezine/enewsletter.

Prong #3: Develop and sell information products. It doesn’t matter what your main business may be, having some low cost (and up) products so people who like your “free stuff” can see how good your “non-free stuff is.” If, as in my example, you are a consultant and speaker, people who buy products for maybe $20-$100 will be more likely to hire you for your normal fees. It’s a BIG leap of faith for someone to hire you for consulting or to deliver a keynote speech, i.e. for thousands of dollars, as their first transaction with you!

I knew Tom Antion existed for a while. I’m wary of most Internet marketers and gurus, because most of them are full of nonsense. Tom, and his book, delivers.

Within 10 minutes I had easily received more than my money’s worth from this book!
Buy New from Amazon - less than $14

Web Marketing Today

One resource I've found very helpful as I was first designing my website, as well as now that I'm extending, enhancing, and adding bells and whistles, is Ralph Wilson's Web Marketing Today.

I not only subscribe to his free enewletter, but often use his large website for information on building user friendly websites, selling from websites, and much more. No, I don't sell anything over the web, but may eventually. There is a lot of information most website owners could use to improve their website regardless of their site's purpose.

BTW, I've never paid Ralph a dime for any of his special reports, ebooks, etc., but probably will eventually. Like most Internet users, I believe that if the "free stuff" is so valuable, the information for sale must be extremely valuable as well and I'm sure I won't be disappointed.

So why this post now? Ralph asked all his newsletter subscribers for a link for the 10th anniversary of Web Marketing Today, and it's easily been a valuable enough resource to recommend.

VP of "You Can't Be Serious"

Someone once suggested that every organization needs a Vice President in charge of "You Can't Be Serious" once they get to a certain size.

The VPs prime responsibility would be to prevent inane projects, or worst case, stop projects that never should have started! This includes projects that make no sense, projects that don't have enough resources to complete or adequately be supported through their lifecycle, as well as simply moronic and stupid projects.

We all have myopia to some extent, and having someone up above (organizationally speaking) that stops us from endeavors almost certainly doomed to failure would be a great thing!!

Then again, most wildly successful endeavors looked somewhat insane initially. I'm not suggesting anyone stop all apparent "pie in the sky" type projects, just stupid ones. A low chance of success, if the payoff is big enough, is not necessarily inane!