Liar, liar...

Would it surprise you to know that sugary cereals really aren't healthy? Sure! They have a vitamin or two and probably some kind of grain buried under all the fat and sugar and chemicals, but why pay attention to that?

Instead, Kellogg's corporation has been busy touting the healthy benefits of their kid's breakfast "foods":

Kellogg has agreed to expand a settlement order that was reached last year after the FTC alleged that the company made false claims that its Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal was “clinically shown to improve kids’ attentiveness by nearly 20%.”

At about the same time that Kellogg agreed to stop making these kinds of false claims in its cereal ads, the company began a new advertising campaign promoting the purported health benefits of Rice Krispies, according to the FTC. On product packaging, Kellogg claimed that Rice Krispies cereal “now helps support your child’s immunity,” with “25 percent Daily Value of Antioxidants and Nutrients – Vitamins A, B, C, and E.” The back of the cereal box stated that “Kellogg’s Rice Krispies has been improved to include antioxidants and nutrients that your family needs to help them stay healthy.”

What did they get for such a misleading and blatantly manipulative campaign? An order from the FTC to stop making claims without proper scientific backing. Ooooh! Burn!

Todd Davis didn't post his social security number publicly because he thought his company could protect it. He did it as an advertising gimmick that netted him almost 2 million paying customers. At least, I have to assume that's what Todd's motivations were because I'm guessing he's not an idiot and knew his service wouldn't actually prevent ID theft. Even if he were, there have been so particularly telling clues recently such as:

1. Having his own identity robbed 13 times since the stunt began.
2. The 12 million dollar settlement with the FTC over false advertising relating to their gross misrepresentation of being able to prevent ID theft.

That's why when an employee's sensitive data showed up online, they worked to have it removed. No one should have their social security number posted publicly because the risk is too great. Unless of course you're the CEO of a company that charges $10/month to almost 2 million people and can afford any amount of ID theft you're hit with.

For those that are bad at math, that's 20 million a month income. Makes that $12 million settlement seem kind of inconsequential doesn't it?

I found this pretty amusing:

The world needs a simple word or term that means "the act of creating deliberately confusing jargon and user-interfaces which trick your users into sharing more info about themselves than they really want to." Suggestions?

Although we didn't specifically mention Facebook in our question, … suggestions included "Zuckermining", "Infozuckering", "Zuckerpunch" and plenty of other variations on the name of Facebook's Founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Others suggested words like "Facebooking", "Facebaiting", and "Facebunk".

In the end, they went with a suggestion of "Evil Interfaces" which refers to any user interface that is designed to trick people out of their data or make them do something they don't want to do. Check out the source article for examples of the kind of "Evil Interfaces" they're talking about.

And one more thing before we go:

OK, perhaps the word "evil" is a little strong. There's no doubt that bad user-interfaces can come from good intentions. Design is difficult, and accidents do happen. But when an accident coincidentally bolsters a company's business model at the expense of its users' rights, it begins to look suspicious. And when similar accidents happen over and over again in the same company, around the same issues, it's more than just coincidence. It's a sign something's seriously wrong.

Beautifully worded.

I've always debated things like helping jaywalkers, buying magazines at the door, and listening to telemarketers, but I think that I've finally come up with a common solution. Don't pick up anyone on the side of the road. Don't buy anything at your doorstep that doesn't involve cash and girl-scout cookies. And definitely, never, ever, talk to someone selling something or doing a "survey" on the phone.

The Consumerist is running a story about a warehouse worker who took a phone survey and was fired for it. It turns out that the shady company on the other end remixed the phone call recording to make it sound as if he answered "YES" to questions like "are you authorized to make phone plan decisions for your company" and "do you want to switch to Thieving Scumbag Phone Service Inc?"

It may not be fair to the people who are honest, but there's just no way for you to know who is and who isn't safe to deal with so the only logical choice to to stay out of it entirely. Check out this advice from a prior phone survey industry member on how to permanently get out of the call listings. Tags: Telephone Surveys

I doubt this surprises anyone:

Classmates.com was sued because it allegedly sent out e-mails to anyone registered for its free service, suggesting that their fellow graduates were looking to contact them—they could find out who that person was if they'd simply upgrade to one of the subscription tiers. At least two individuals did so and quickly discovered that the mystery classmate didn't exist—nobody they knew had been looking.

Still, this is good news because companies shouldn't be allowed to lie outright the way Classmates has.

I'm not surprised about the fine, just that it took this long. Of course, they'll just shrug it off and any other lawsuit so long as they make more money than they spend.

Sadly, by the time someone actually shuts Lifelock down (if ever), the people responsible for it will be so rich that it won't make any difference. But until then, we can feel a little happier knowing that there are some organizations that are making them pay for their dishonesty; although 12 million dollars is less than one month of Lifelock's income on their almost 2 million reported customers.

This totally made my day:

A Wisconsin college student filed a class-action complaint against Experian this week, claiming that the company's ubiquitous ads for FreeCreditReport.com led her to believe she could use the site to get a no-cost credit report.

Go figure! Someone believed that FreeCreditReport means you can get a free credit report? What are the odds!?

How this has gone on this long I'll never know. Even after 11,000 Better Business Bureau complaints the most that's been done to date was the very cool FTC spoof videos making fun of FreeCreditReport's TV ads where they did everything short of calling them crooks.

It's such an exquisite pleasure to watch this bogus company go down; let's hope this suit sticks.

Update June 2010:

It's probably been a month or two (or three or four) since this happened, but as a result of the lawsuit, the FTC has required them to put a giant banner on the top of their website saying essentially that they're full of it. Granted, the site should just have been shut down, but it's still nice to see.

Hard to sell your supposedly free reports now isn't it?

Disasters always bring out the human sludge scammers

As always happens with current events and especially with relief and aid efforts, scammers come out of their holes to steal money meant for the unfortunate. E-mails and social networking messages will start pouring in and fake relief websites have popped up already. Avoid scams that only make scammers richer and donate only directly to major organizations (such as the Red Cross) or at least do your research first.

The Better Business Bureau has a listing of charities that are in good standing at http://www.bbb.org/us/charity/

For more information about the scams, see the Ars Technica article on the subject.

This chart is a little eye-opening. I already knew that a lot of bottled water is actually filtered tap water, but I didn't know (nor am I surprised) that the regulation on bottled water is insufficient. If you want to buy a bottle of water, go ahead, but know what you're getting for the money.

Presented by Online Education

The Facts About Bottled Water

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Amazon.com, but this season, it's more hate. I found the gift I'd been looking for on Amazon for about $10 cheaper than my normal favorite, Newegg.com.

However, I suppose nothing cheap comes without strings attached, not at Amazon anyway. Check out this BS:

Are you kidding me? (click for the full picture)

So not only are they saying that with more than 20 days lead time, they can't get me this item by Christmas and it's not free shipping as was promised, but there's hope! If I sign up for "AMAZON PRIME" I get not only free shipping, but it comes on time. It's only 80 FREAKING DOLLARS should I somehow forget to cancel.

Ok, so I could just sign up and cancel right away, but I shouldn't have to jump through goofy hoops just to buy something and this smacks entirely of deliberate obstacles for the sake of pushing me into their "premium service". I don't do deceptive.

For $10 more, I just kept my business at Newegg.com which has been the most consistently excellent source of electronics research and prices all while maintaining excellent customer service. Be sure to take your business there too.

Update: It's the 11th and my gift already arrived. I wonder why Newegg's free standard ground shipping managed to get me my item in less than 5 days, but somehow Amazon just couldn't do it in less than 20 unless I signed up for Amazon Prime… Hmmm…. It's a mystery.