Wednesday, November 28, 2007
How To Know Your Email Card Is Safe
Cheers to American Greetings (
NYSE:AM) for their holiday initiative.
One month after proving they were serious about a web presence by acquiring WebShots.com to go with Blue Mountain and other well known ecard providers, the company's online division launched
an education effort today to help consumers know when they are receiving a legitimate holiday card.
Among the company's recommendations were to hover your computer's cursor over the link to retrieve or "pick up" your card. If the card is from AG Interactive or one of its companies, the link shown by your activity will not be a string of numbers (called an IP address), but will be located at
http://www.american-greetings.com.
The company also said that it had set up a special mailbox at "security (at) americangreetings dot com" where consumers could send suspicous email. Additional information is available at the
company's email protection center.
Labels: AGI, American Greetings, email, spoof
Thursday, November 01, 2007
FTC Warning: Don't Open Our Mail
The Federal Trade Commission is warning consumers that they are the victims of a
phishing attack. Someone is using email to impersonate the FTC, which is pretty dumb on the intelligence scale.
The federal agency says that the email comes from an address labeled frauddep@ftc.gov. An FTC seal is included in the email, but there are multiple spelling and other errors. There are links and an attachment in the email, both of which could cause your computer to be infected by a virus.
If you received any such email, run your computer's virus checking software to be safe. If you haven't and do, just delete that email. Better safe than sorry this week. If the FTC wants you, I'm sure they'll contact you another way. What makes this so different is that the address
appears to be from the government and the use of the
FTC's logo.
Woe to the company who spoofed the FTC. We expect to be reporting on an arrest any day now.
Labels: email, FTC, spoof
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Consumer Email Slightly Shielded
Consumers would do well to remember the name Steven Warshak.
Based on a district court's ruling that the
government appealed in the 6th Circuit and lost, consumers should expect that their email is not available even in a criminal investigation unless the consumer has "...prior notice and an opportunity to be heard" regarding a motion.
The Court's ruling, based on emails requested from two ISPs, Nuvox and Yahoo (functioning as an ISP in this case because it stored email), essentially states that email can't be retrieved on an investigative basis such as a search warrant, but that notice must be given to the other side, as in a subpoena. This allows the consumer to retain counsel and challenge the release of the email.
It is important to note that this ruling is only precedent -- it is
not a law. It is also important to note that consumers should not expect similar protections for their
work email. Multiple decisions over the years have defined email stored in an employee's email account as the employer's property. Because of this, employers do not need permission to monitor, copy, review or use email in the workplace.
Now that the 6th Circuit has said that consumer email is protected until ordered released by a subpoena, the email has roughly the same protections as postal mail. This makes sense to us because the intent of the communication is the same, and only the medium is different.
We believe the next big challenge will occur at the intersection of a consumer accessing their personal email from a workplace computer. Such instances have previously been considered part of the employer/employee relationship. One wonders, however, if a challenge based on
Warshak might provoke change.
Labels: 6th Circuit, email, privacy, Warshak
