Why doesn’t Ben’s bias bother people? Because he’s not only fighting the good fight but doing so with facts that cannot be refuted. The facts that Ben points to are relevant. Things like his knowledge of how TRUSTe inner-workings, how many times he’s said nice things about his company, etc. are irrelevant.

TRUSTe knew about serious problems and ignored them… put them off until later at best.

Let’s get real — we all have financial interests. Even Stuart Frankel. With whom and how we align them is what counts in the grand scheme of life.

just-reporting-the-facts here” tone of pseudo-objectivity. TRUSTe, as

flawed as it is, at least tries to make ecommerce more vital and

reliable. It’s not a perfect system, but SiteAdvisor is no replacement

for it. Since Ben stands to gain financially through the success of

SiteAdvisor, he has a clear interest in criticizing TrustE. Why doesn’t

this bother more people?

What also bridles about Ben is his tone of relentless criticism–much

like a graduate student whose expertise begins and ends with poking

holes in the systems and arguments of others. If your aim is to further

the spread of ecommerce and online advertising (which one would assume

of readers of revenews), this shrill tone of constant detraction has

limited usefulness.

What also bridles about Ben is his tone of relentless criticism–much like a graduate student whose expertise begins and ends with poking holes in the systems and arguments of others. If your aim is to further the spread of ecommerce and online advertising (which one would assume of readers of revenews), this shrill tone of constant detraction has limited usefulness.

What also bridles about Ben is his tone of relentless criticism–much like a graduate student whose expertise begins and ends with poking holes in the systems and arguments of others. If your aim is to further the spread of ecommerce and online advertising (which one would assume of readers of revenews), this shrill tone of constant detraction has limited usefulness.

They are not living up to their brand promise, and you are doing good because you are alerting the public. I really don’t care about all the nuances about why they are unable to do what their brand promises. Perhaps it is profit, perhaps it is incompetence, perhaps it is ignorance, or ambivalence. It does not matter.

If they are admitting that there are many companies that display the seal may have bad practices, then their brand means nothing. Go get em. Your response is accurate but the tone is a little defensive which was their intent. Don’t be on the defensive, stay on the offense.

From Cloudeight's "InfoAve Premium Newsletter"

September 10, 2004

While looking through some forums the other night we came across some interesting entries. There were people writing posts that said that this program or that program were not spyware because they had the TRUSTe seal.

So, we decided to check it our for ourselves to see exactly how much we could trust TRUSTe. The first place we went was to "Hotbar" (a TRUSTe licensee).

I'm sure many of you who've been reading our newsletters for very long know how we feel about "Hotbar". And, some of you are aware that "Hotbar" has threatened legal action against us. Just to be "fair and balanced" we did a search on Google for "Hotbar and we found 39 pages of search results. At the end of this article we a link to the search results. Feel free to check them out or do your own search.

"Hotbar" says they are not spyware. Their 4400+ word "Hotbar" EULA is an magnificent masterpiece of ambiguity. A lawyer's dream. Anyway, we wanted to see what TRUSTe had to say about spyware. So we visited their bustling little hive of a Web site and sure enough we find that TRUSTe is firmly entrenched in the war on spyware! They quote an entire anti-spyware article from GetNetWise http://www.getnetwise.com. You can see it for yourself on the TRUSTe Web site: http://www.truste.org/articles/preventing_spyware… .

"Hotbar" is an TRUSTe seal holder. That means they meet TRUSTe standards for protecting your privacy. Yet hundreds, perhaps thousands of technical, anti-spyware, government, college, and educational sites say that "Hotbar" is spyware. TRUSTe is against spyware. Are you starting to see something wrong with this picture? Here's what TRUSTe says about "Hotbar":

This confirms that Hotbar.com, Inc. ("Hotbar") is a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program.

TRUSTe is an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to build users' trust and confidence in the Internet by promoting the principles of fair information practices. Because "Hotbar" is committed to respecting and protecting your privacy, we have agreed to disclose our information practices and have our privacy practices reviewed and audited for compliance by a third-party auditor at the direction of TRUSTe. These TRUSTe principles apply to personally identifiable information gathered on "Hotbar" Web site. This privacy statement will inform all visitors to our Web site regarding:

1. What personally identifiable information we collect/use about you on this Web site

2. What we do with personally identifiable information we collect/use on this Web site

3. Whether any of your personally identifiable information will be shared with any third party

"Questions regarding this statement should be directed to the Hotbar site coordinator at Hotbar.privacy@Hotbar.com or TRUSTe at http://www.truste.org/users/users_watchdog.html for clarification."

We think it's a shame when companies like TRUSTe, who are in the business of trust and purporting to protect consumers, bestow their seal on companies like "Hotbar". These companies then hide behind that seal of trust. In our opinion, "Hotbar" uses the TRUSTe seal to lure innocent and unsuspecting consumers into a tangled Web of questionable an ever-expanding list of "free" products. We have personally seen the problems "Hotbar" can cause.

If you can't trust TRUSTe who can you trust? Sorry TRUSTe, you have lost our trust….and respect.

Note: This article was written on September 10, 2004. Since then, thanks to Ben Edelman's efforts, Hotbar has been delisted by TRUSTe. Recently, Hotbar joined with adware giant "180Solutions" to form Zango. See http://thundercloud.net/infoave/zango-tango.htm .

My take is it’s like having the UN “blue hats” policing hot fire zones, or their past performance on enforcing UN security counsel resolutions. Hard to applaud their noble efforts saving a handful of people from raping, pillaging and murder, when right in front of their noses hundreds of thousands get whacked. Someone/somewhere once said …Those who do no evil need no stinkin’ badges …those who do require them as shields.

Truste need to be an effective barrier to consumer exploitation and not some meaningless enity shielding the Adwhores of all flavors.