Hushmail – Email Privacy and the Government
If you think that your Hushmail emails are secure, think again. Despite the PGP encryption, Hushmail, a Canadian company, is apparently cooperating with U.S. law enforcement authorities who want to look at emails.
This raises many interesting legal issues but reinforces the fact that you should never put in email anything that you don’t want third parties to read. Assume the worst will happen. “Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead,” quipped Benjamin Franklin. Consider this when writing your next e-mail. Even if the recipient doesn’t share what you wrote with someone else (and chances are that he will), your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or email provider may be gutting your privacy rights behind your back by giving copies to the government or even someone interested in suing you.
What’s the lesson for your online business?
If you make representations about your products or services, you better stand by those representations. And if your website’s privacy policy states X is true, you should make sure that it is in fact true.
As for Hushmail, it will be interesting to see if the company gets sued.
Hat tip to Iaian Thomson at ITNews for this email privacy story.
Be sure to check out the podcast for this post.
Samsung – Word-of-Mouth Marketing and Consumer Protection
The warranty provided for the TV to get in-home service “where available.” Translation: Not available in the metro area where I live that has a population of 5 million. Hmmm. Just a hint of deceptive trade practices…and then it got worse.
Filling out the paperwork, scanning in the receipt and uploading it, packing the TV, and hauling it to UPS to ship (at my expense) for repairs was just the beginning.
Samsung received the TV ten days ago (per UPS tracking) but only acknowledged receipt after two lengthy phone calls that involved Press #5, Press #1 etc., being placed on hold repeatedly, and speaking to room temperature IQ drones who had memorized scripts but lacked either the authority or incentive to actually provide customer service.
Now here’s where it gets even better. Samsung provided an option where one could receive a refurbished model if it would take more than 3 business days to repair the defective TV. I chose that option.
However, the last customer service drone denied the existence of the option and said that I could expect to wait another 14-21 business days calculated based on their erroneous decision to claim receipt of the TV yesterday instead of 10 days ago when they actually got it. He’s probably still trying to anatomically do to himself what I recommended in response.
What’s the important lesson in this?
Word-of-mouth marketing is a double-edged sword. While I frequently refer clients and friends to goods and services that are excellent, when a company like Samsung displays this level of arrogance/incompetence/disdain for the customer, I’ll be happy to let others know of my experience too.
As for Samsung, the company is about to get an expensive lesson in both word-of-mouth marketing and consumer protection laws…one that is more entertaining than a television show. I suspect they’ll try to shoot the messenger instead of fixing their internal problems.
There are important consumer protection laws at the federal and state level that may protect you in a similar situation. And if you own a business, you should be concerned about a consumer who makes a claim under those laws. Of course, in either case, consult your attorney to discuss your specific situation. This post isn’t legal advice.
For a related overview of consumer protection and word-of-mouth marketing, please watch the following video or listen to the podcast.
…And stay tuned.
