Internet

eBay's Business Ethics or Lack Thereof

C.S. Magor — Sat, 31 May 2008 18:46:29 -0700

What's the problem? In case you didn't know, eBay owns Paypal and Paypal charges some rather excessive fees. If you are using Paypal within country, the fees are a little steep. They are charged at the point of receipt, so the merchant is hit with them and they can be expensive. The fees are not capped and are a percentage of the transaction. The more the merchant earns for a sale, the more Paypal earns. If you are making a so called, "cross borders payment," the fee effectively doubles. On top of that Paypal takes a 3% cut on the exchange rate.

If I live in Australia and receive a payment of USD 1,000 from the United States, I can expect to take a hit of around USD 40. I will receive USD 960 instead of USD 1,000. Now, if I want to deposit that USD 960 into my bank account, Paypal will give me an exchange that is 3% below the market rate. A single transaction has netted them almost USD 50; that is considerably more than the cost of an international wire.

Some people can't help but use Paypal. It is the international currency of professional bloggers and it is an effective way to accept credit card transactions without a merchant account. It allows a large number of casual folks to conduct business online. I begrudgingly use it, but would switch to Google Checkout in a heartbeat if it were offered here in Japan.

The thing is that in Australia, people do have choices; very good ones, in fact. Internet banking is huge in Australia and there are plenty of secure ways for merchants to accept transactions. Not to mention the fact that accepting credit card transactions is a whole lot cheaper. There is little wonder that only 25% of Australian eBay users use Paypal.

Jealous Husband Who Put Wife on eBay Under Investigation for Harassment

C.S. Magor — Thu, 15 May 2008 07:41:03 -0700

Paul Osborne, a 44-year-old Englishman was so devastated at the thought that his wife of 24 years might be having an affair, that he packed her things, put them on the curb. It all started with some rumors that he heard and allegedly confirmed by snooping through her email account. He gave her a second chance, but again became convinced and this time took more drastic action: he put her on eBay.

According to Paul: “In a fit of rage I put the advert on eBay. I later took it off because I realized it wasn’t the right thing to do. I was just so angry.”

We can all agree that it was the wrong thing to do, but you have to feel for the guy, who after being married for 24 years discovered emails in his wife's account between her and another man where, "They had been discussing their sex life together and making plans for the future."

For future reference John, the appropriate course of action would have been to consult a competent divorce attorney. [Daily Telegraph]

Microsoft IE8 Gets a Timely ActiveX Security Boost

C.S. Magor — Sun, 11 May 2008 22:44:39 -0700

Network Solutions Reach for the Depths

C.S. Magor — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:16:02 -0700

There is something of a Wild West mentality to ethics on the Internet; which has its good and bad points. Most blogs struggle to make ends meet or lose money. This blog is in the latter category and I am fine with that; the end goal is to get this thing in the black and I will one day, I am sure of that. The thing is that Internet business is hard, it is competitive and it is cut throat; we don't need to be hamstrung or exploited by the very companies that we turn to for hosting, yet we are.

Network Solutions was in the news not all that long ago for front running or domain kiting as it is sometimes called. The practice works like this: you go to their site and start hunting down domain names. Whatever you type in, they register, Network Solutions would have you know that they do this to protect you. They charge a premium for the service, which if you ask me is nothing short of exploitation. If you wait for a reasonably short period of time they do release the domain, but why should you have to wait? When I heard the news I was flabbergasted; Network Solutions is a very large hosting provider, why would they need to do things that way?

Flash forward to today, where I am browsing a bunch of miscellaneous feeds. Network Solutions caught my eye again and I decided to investigate. It seems that they are domain parking on people's sub domains and earning money from them. Don't worry, the user signs away any right to complain in their 59,000 word user agreement:

Synchronize your Gadgets with Sugar Sync

C.S. Magor — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 04:50:55 -0700

The more devices that you have the bigger the problem of keeping everything in sync can become. SugarSync is a web-based service that aims to change all of that. It is PC and Mac compatible and will allow you to share files between as many systems as you want. It takes the work out of synchronization. You do not need to have all of your systems online in order for it to work. It would seem that the documents, images and other files that you sync are uploaded to the SugarSync server, from where they are sent out to the other systems that you own. It is a common sense approach; sort of like Foxmarks for files.

SugarSync also brings your mobile devices into line; not all are equal in this department. Windows Mobile and Blackberry devices can handle whatever you throw at them, but the iPhone will only display pictures. According to the review in USA Today, the Mac software is presently in Alpha stage, but will be advancing to Beta shortly. It is apparently a little buggy but gets the job done.

Quite obviously, services like this are not free. The cost of your service will depend on your data synching needs:

"A basic subscription gives you 10 gigabytes of online storage for $5 a
month or $50 a year. A 30-GB plan costs $10 a month or $100 a year. The
top-tier 250-GB plan costs $50 a month and $500 a year. SugarSync
includes a 45-day free trial. First year prices are half off for
Sharpcast Photos subscribers and SugarSync beta testers."

As we get more devices and our mobile devices become more capable, synchronization is going to become somewhat closer to a necessity than a convenience.