Source here

It is every blogger's sworn duty to heap mounds of scorn on the things that bother or irritate us. Ok, so we're not actually sworn in, but based on the way most people blog, it seems like that were the case.

My point is that while complaining about the ills of society and bringing attention to stupidity and abuse are vital (and fun) activities, it is equally as important for us to band together and promote the positives by saluting those who are actually doing it right.

Today, the company that deserves our praise is Nordstrom's. Check out this sign found outside one of their stores:

Christmas creep is a problem of greed and of commercialization of holidays. It's an assault on our peace of mind and of the very few American traditions that we have. Or put simply, Christmas creep ruins Christmas. No music, no decorations, no nothing until AFTER Thanksgiving. It has always been and will always be that way in my house and I respect and support any company with the guts to keep to the same policy.

Nordstrom's, for today at least, you are my friend.

Better privacy controls? Yes please!

For as long as Google has existed, it has been and continues to be my favorite search engine by far. I like the company, their services, and just about everything about them except for one thing: abysmal privacy policies.

Though Google has legitimate use for storing search records to see how long it takes someone to find what they're looking for, there's no need to store an IP address along with the search records. Any unique identifier would work. There's certainly no reason why Google should store your records for 18 months, let alone 18 minutes.

To be fair, sometimes they get things right like when they strongly resisted government invasion of search records, but the information is there and that creates a risk.

While that issue is still in the air, Google recently made another step in the right direction with their Google Dashboard feature. When logged into any Google service, you can go to http://www.google.com/dashboard to see a consolidated listing of everything Google knows about you. Documents, chat records, search history, etc.

The service gives you single-page access to the privacy controls for every service that you're using with Google. This not only makes what they have on you more transparent, but easier to manage. Granted, they have more work to do in giving you control over what's stored and what isn't, you can at least delete some of the data. For instance, if you've made searches in the past that list your home address or medical information and you don't want Google to have that on file, you can delete it.

Of course, that doesn't get rid of every copy that exists, but it at leasts takes it out of their current records and makes it less likely to get swooped up by government snooping or any future data breaches that Google might suffer. All in all, a very good step in the right direction so make sure to check it out if you use Google services.

One hundred percent of credit cards offered online by the leading bank card issuers continue to include practices that will be outlawed once legislation passed in May takes effect next year.

What this hardly surprising bit of news is saying is that every single bank, because they've been allowed to thus far, uses abusive and deceptive credit practices. It just boggles my mind when people say the market can "regulate itself". I wonder why several hundred years of abuses isn't enough evidence of just how wrong that is.

It looks like some companies haven't forgotten what customer service is supposed to mean. Airtran reportedly corrected a mistaken booking and didn't charge anything to do it!

A lady accidentally booked her flight from Baltimore instead of Philadelphia, most likely do to website form goofs or just plain human error.

I have no idea why these two ticket counter attendants took it upon themselves to help me out of such a stupid mistake, but I really appreciate their assistance. The situation was entirely and completely my fault, yet they fixed it for me. Frankly, I was shocked; in an age when airlines charge for everything from extra pretzels to water bottles, I was completely floored that my ticket was corrected at no charge. But more than that, I'm grateful. I haven't flown Airtran very many times but if this is any indication of the level of service provided, Airtran is becoming my preferred airline.

I couldn't have said it better myself. For today at least, AirTran, you deserve a kudos!

Bad Sears, BAD!

The sick thing about this story is that the spyware wasn't a hack against these companies, but was planned and sanctioned by the companies.

Between April 2007 and January 2008, visitors to the Kmart and Sears web sites were invited to join an "online community" for which they would be paid $10 with the idea they would be helping the company learn more about their customers. It turned out they learned a lot more than participants realized or that the feds thought was reasonable. To join the "My SHC Community," users downloaded software that ended up grabbing some members' prescription information, emails, bank account data and purchases on other sites. Sears called the group that participated "small" and said the data captured by the program was at all times secure and was then destroyed.

Remember that there are no laws currently to protect against the abusive data collection and sharing practices that many companies employ. Be careful with your data and don't trust even the most reputable-seeming companies to choose your privacy over the almighty dollar.