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The Story Of A Scam

More and more Danes fall victim to scams on the web! That at least is the story in Danish paper Jyllands-Posten (yes, the infamous one) today.

The story focuses on a Dane who was scammed into paying 12.000 Euro for a car that he never received. The buyer allegedly thought the design of the sellers web page "looked trustworthy" and thus payed the money in advance (!!) by transferring it to an Italian bank account.

What annoys me about this story is that it portrays the web as a place where scamming has run amok. Yes of course there is scamming going on. But the case story is actually not about a web scam, is it? Making a guy pay money in advance to a seller he doesn't know for goods he hasn't received, is a scam that has probably been around a little longer than the web :-).

Yes, the web facilitated the scam. But it could probably have happened via other channels as well.

Sometimes journalists are simply a little quick to jump to the popular conclusion: The web is dangerous.

Get the full story (in Danish)

Technorati: Scam | Journalism

Regrets Of A Web Inventor

Okay this might be kinda of an old reference, but I've been out of the loop for a while. So if you're in a similar situation, here goes:

The British Computer Society (BCS) has posted an interview with the inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. First question goes like this:

»Q: Looking back on 15 years or so of development of the Web is there anything you would do differently given the chance?

A: I would have skipped on the double slash - there's no need for it. Also I would have put the domain name in the reverse order - in order of size so, for example, the BCS address would read: http:uk/org/bcs/members [...]«

What a magnificent answer. It shows just how far the web has come in its development. In the beginning: primarily an instrument for scientific communication. Today: a tool for you, me and everbody else.

Stop The Blog Spammers

The Blogosphere is slowly drowning in spam comments, writes news.com. Don't I know it. At least four times a week I have to remove a comment advertising porn or gambling from this blog.

And that's just my humble publishing space. Slightly more popular blogs like Boing Boing ;-) has had to totally remove the comment function, mainly because of an explosion in junk comments. While Robert Scoble's Scobleizer blog manages to round up 100 spam comments a day.

While there are filters and other software to combat the spam, it remains a problem for both blog owners and readers.
»It reminds me of visible smog, because it obscures what you want to be looking at. You have to waste brain cycles to filter it out,« says Mark Frauenfelder, co-editor of Boing Boing to the techie news site.

Why don't spammers understand that by posting irrelevant stuff on a blog, they annoy the readers -- thereby alienating the very customers they want to sell their product to? In fact it is somewhat comparable to a grocer hitting people in the head with a six pack of beer in order for them to notice and buy the damn thing.

Technorati: Spam | Blogs

A Chronicle Of Online Bewilderedness

I am looking to download some software for my JVC camcorder and go to the Danish JVC site. A Web Site with usability resembling that of a door nailed shut! I look under downloads. Nothing there. I am referred to a Japanese JVC site. Nothing there.

Then I go back to the Danish site to write the company and ask them how to obtain the software. I click the "Contact JVC button" with a giant at-symbol on it. But the link takes me to a page with a JVC postal address, phone and fax number. No e-mail address, no contact form!

Now, first of all it's late Friday night. I very much doubt that JVC-employees will pick up the phone at this hour (it is not an 800-number). Secondly I really want to write them because I need the specific link for the download.

Then I try the American JVC site, thinking they might be able to help me. And indeed the Americans have had the ingenuity of setting up an actual form for customers to write them ;-) I type my question and send it. A couple of days later I get an answer:

"We regret to inform you that your unit is not a product manufactured for distribution and sale by JVC America, and, as such, we have no support functions or information regarding it [...] Your inquiry, therefore, might be best addressed by JVC UK.  You may contact that entity at: JVC (UK) LIMITED, JVC HOUSE, JVC Business Park, 12 Priestley Way, London NW2 7BA, United Kingdom, Telephone:  (0208)450-3282."

Again there is no e-mail-address - and when I go the British site, there is no way to write to them with my question either!

Wow... It puzzles me that a humongous international company like JVC cannot be contacted locally by e-mail. For any company nowadays (even a big one) putting a contact e-mail-address on your web site should be as obvious as writing your phone number.

Come on JVC. You can do better!

Technorati: JVC | Usability

Readers Want Online News

Online newspapers' audiences are growing rapidly, writes CBS News citing an industry study by the Newspaper Association of America which finds that one in three American Internet users visit a newspaper Web site every month.

Another interesting trend highlighted by the study, is that unique visitors to newspaper sites has jumped 21 percent from January 2005 to December 2005, while the number of page views has risen by 43 percent over the same period.

Seems like the-print-edition-is-our-bread-winner-type news organizations will have to thoroughly rethink their way of doing business sooner than they thought.

Technorati: Online news