Sponsors: This is Bullshit [Drama]
 

Over the last few days, I have signed up for several programs. Out of those signups, nearly all requested personal information, name, address, e-mail, tax ID, bank routing information, etc, etc. And almost all of them requested this information on non-secure, unencrypted web forms.

Identity theft is a growing problem and it is fueled mostly by lazy and incompetent people who are careless with other's personal information. A day can barely pass these days where we don't hear of someone buying a hard drive on eBay only to find some companies database on it, or somebody downloading a huge file of financial info sitting on someone's server in a flat file.

If you cant install an SSL certificate and run a secure website, what other careless practices are you employing while you are handling my data and others data? An ounce of prevention is worth tons of cure. Which adult webmaster program is going to be the first to give a CNN interview explaining that its incompetence was responsible for the disruption of hundreds or thousands of peoples lives?

And make no mistake, it will happen. Its only a matter of time. And when it does happen, it will damage the entire industry in a very public way. Adult already has a tough time getting card processing services due to our perceived higher fraud risk and the other egg we get on our faces (most of it undeserved) from the religious nuts and other such factions working to knock us out. Your average mainstream business already has a bad opinion of our industry, why do anything that could potentially create a situation that could reinforce and fuel that sentiments?

This is a serious issue and it warrants attention. If you are requesting banking or tax information online, you need to get off your fucking ass, get out your credit card, buy an SSL certificate and install it. Its not hard, even the dumb kids can do it. There are alot of problems in this industry, many of them out of the industry's control. This one is not out of our control.

And no, I am not going to name any program in particular. The guilty ones know who they are. So for all the program bashers, sorry to disappoint. Check yourselves, address the issue and we can all be safer.

This is bullshit. Its unprofessional. It needs to be addressed.

Thank you, that will be all. Back to your regularly scheduled bullshit.

sig spot

sad, but true....

You're absolutely correct!

I'm anxious to hear from some program owners on what's being done to protect our info.

see sig. :)

hmmm, good subject!

Considering most of these programs will sell your email and personal info anyways SSL seems to be unnecessary...

our first year in the business was 1998 and in 1999 we got stuck with the tax bill for a few dozen webmasters' earnings. if a sponsor program has bad tax info then it gets stuck with the tax bill for the lamerz fyi... use a valid company with a taxpayer id and not your social if you are worried or call in your info or something secure, but don't hate the player :2 cents:

sad but true....

I totally agree. Our affiliate signup and update pages are secure.

Not to mention all the retard affiliate reps that bounce around from one program to another. SSL is the least of people's worries unfortunately. :Oh crap

And that is the reason for not using a secure page?

I am amazed at the sponsors whose default signup page isn't even secure . . . . but offer you another link to click if you would prefer a secured page.

Why not just default to it?

Does it cost money to secure a page?

we take the tax info securely

I don't think his complaint was about having to give the info, I think he was complaining about a lack of a security cert so he can.

A couple bucks for an SSL Certificate which is renewed yearly (as I recall).

Correct. And they are pretty cheap now, used to cost about $600 a year, now its under $100 IIRC.

Right. They need the info for compliance reasons, this I understand. Its just shoddy to request such info in an unprofessional manner.

Thats a whole different topic that also needs to be addressed, but the fact that sponsors have one bad practice and thats tolerated does not mean they should have two bad practices and we should tolerate those, too.

Yes you are right the SSL Certificate for "X" number of pages cost few extra bucks