FTC Comes Down Hard on Internet Company

July 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Don’t you hate companies that deceive people to make a little money? Companies that misrepresent themselves to trick the consumer into thinking they’re getting one thing, when they’re actually getting another? We hate ‘em.

 

So does the FTC. The agency recently agreed to a settlement that put the brakes on a US company who paraded itself as a UK company, using a website that ended in ‘co.uk.’ 

The commission says the company made customers believe it was in the UK to get sales, and then the customers were charged unexpected import duty fees and were threatened with refunding fees if people wanted to return the product. 

Truth in Advertising is a Law, not a Choice 

Internet marketer Jaivin Karnani who owns Balls of Kryptonite and several associated businesses sold electronic goods to thousands of UK residents, who thought they were protectedunder the manufacturer’s warranties that were invalid. 

Some of the sites they own are bitesizedeals.co.uk, bestpricebrands.co.uk and crazy cameras.co.uk but none of them are operated in the United Kingdom. 

The defendants advertised fast shipping dates but didn’t come through by not sending the product, or by not sending the products when they said they would. Those few who did manage to get refunds met with stiff opposition and waited long times to receive the refunds. 

The FTC also banned the company from selling items it doesn’t have in hand at the time the order is placed. It’s a good thing we have the FTC and the UK’s OTC to keep an eye on cyber criminals who want to rip people off to make a buck.
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Chemists Reducing Pollutants in Water

June 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Mineral water being poured from a bottle into ... 

Image via Wikipedia

Many pollutants and harmful chemicals have found their way into our water. Arsenic, mercury, and lead are only a few of the substances that have made their way into our waters. Chemists have now found a way to destroy these chemicals, along with pesticides and dyes, before they damage the environment.

Chemists are creating enzyme like catalysts that can destroy these obstinate pollutants in our waterways. These enzymes work by speeding up the cleansing process when applied to waste-water. They may also one day clean contamination from possible biological weapons attacks.

Chemists developed groups of designer catalyst molecules that work with hydrogen peroxide to break down stubborn pollutants present in runoff. This runoff, which contains contaminants at the molecular level from chemicals, plastics, asphalt, etc., that has caused major health problems in fish.

The trick is to apply these enzymes before they make their way into the rivers and lakes. Contaminants and pollutants come from many places.

Farms

  • Animal waste
  • Animal medicines
  • Herbicides
  • Insecticides

Pulp Mills

  • Lignin – an organic substance
  • Chlorinated solvents

Sewers

  • Dyes
  • Cosmetics
  • Pharmaceuticals

Textile Mills

  • Dyes

Because water pollution comes from so many different places, there is a need to clean this water before it reaches rivers and lakes, or reaches our drinking water. The enzymes chemists are developing will be able to destroy some of the worst pollutants before they reach our drinking water. These dyes and chemicals pose serious health threats to humans.

These catalysts treat the runoff from farms and from residential sewage as well as residue from the runoff of washing machines.

Chemists developed catalysts from nature’s own cleansing agents, hydrogen peroxide, and oxygen.

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Recycling Your Old Laptop

March 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

You’ve had some great years with your laptop. You’ve done many high school terms papers at the last minute on it, crammed for your first college test on it, but now it seems that it’s about to crash at any moment. When this happens, don’t just throw your computer away. Just tossing out a computer could be bad for the environment. Instead, recycle your old laptop and do good for the environment.

There are a few steps that should be done before recycling your old laptop. The first thing would be to make sure all your information is safe. A total stranger could be getting your computer and you don’t want them to know any of your personal information. Make sure all of it is deleted before you recycle your old laptop.

If the computer is still useable in the least bit, you can donate it to a thrift store that will than sell it for really cheap. But make sure the store is a non-profit place because whatever money they make off your donations will be donated to those in need. This could be your own way of giving back.

If the computer just can’t be used at all, look for computer recycling places nearby. If you live in a big city they should have locations where you can just drop off the computer. Your computer will than be refurbished and donated to people in special programs who are in need of electronics.

If you’re unsure about where to bring your old laptop, do a little Google search online for places to bring your laptop for recycling. If you have to mail it to them, there are places that will cover your shipping fees.

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Information On Recycling Computers

March 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

There comes a time when we have to bid a fond farewell to our computer because it’s too old to function. Sometimes it’s hard to sell an old computer since no one really knows how to fix up a computer. Your next best option would be to recycle your old computer. Throwing it away would be bad for the environment and by recycling it you’re helping the environment.

There are a few things you should consider when you’ve decided to recycle your old computer. While your computer as a whole might not work, you could have a few good parts that you can still sell for a good amount of money.

Recycling your old computer is better than just tossing it out. The point of being responsible is bringing it to a safe place where you can get rid of your old parts. The best place would be to bring it to a center that’s for recycling old electronics.

When you recycle your old computer you can bring your computer back to life in a different way. Some of your old parts could be put into another computer that was missing that part. Your small part will help fix another computer in need of a certain part.

Before you bring in your old computer, make sure it doesn’t work. The last thing you’d want to do is donate a perfectly good computer. If your computer is only in need of minor fixing than it might be worth fixing. If you’ve determined that your computer is beyond repair than recycling your old computer is your best option.

Do something good for the environment and recycle your broken computer, throwing it away does more bad than good.

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Recycle Your Clothes

December 28, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Recycle Your Clothes

You may think there are only a couple of things that can be done to recycle clothes. Hand me downs and a local donation accepting thrift stores may be the only ways you know to recycle clothes that can no longer be used by your family. However, there are other things that can be done with clothes that are ready to be recycled.

Local Homeless Shelters

Take any adult and children’s clothes to local homeless shelters. Homeless shelters see people of all ages and nationalities and the more clothes that generous donators provide, the more these shelters can extend warm and comfortable clothes to those who may have no other source for acquiring clothing.

Business Clothes

Low Income women who are trying to get out into the business world, often for the first time, may need an extra boost when it comes to business clothes. These are the clothes they are least likely to purchase with money that may be needed to support a family. Dress For Success is a program which collects professional business clothes and provides them to women need them the most.

Animal Shelters

Animal shelters often have the need for extra bedding, clean up rags and items that old clothing can be used for. Contact local animal shelters and ask if they can use the amount of clothing you have to recycle. If they cannot, they may be able to direct you to another shelter who is in need.

Clothing Swap

Consider throwing a clothing swap with neighbors, church members or even other family. This can be a great way to recycle clothing that you may have grown out of or grown tired of, while giving others the chance to pick and choose from what you have to make a delightful wardrobe for the whole family.

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Recycle Your Dead Sales Leads

December 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment

You fought hard for that sale. You spent the last few weeks of your life devoted to that prospect= Taking calls at all hours of the night; Jumping when they said jump; Wining and dining them. Today you got the call. They’re buying from your competitor. They’ll consider you again the next time the contract goes out for bid … in five years.

You might be tempted just to throw all of your files, business cards and correspondence from them into the trash before you lick your wounds and move on. Resist that temptation. Don’t get rid of all that sales data you collected: Recycle it.

Finding business leads for new business is difficult to begin with. Finding the names and contact information for the decision makers at those companies can be even more challenging. So all of that data you have collected – the names, email addresses and phone numbers- are valuable. You can recycle them so that others may be able to benefit from them in the future.

There are several companies that provide a means to recycle your sales leads. The largest is Salesforce-owned Jigsaw. Jigsaw lets you upload your now-dead leads a number of ways. Each lead you upload or update gives you points which you can trade for new leads to help you pursue your next deal. So John Smith, the purchasing manager who just sent you packing is going to enable you to find the name of the decision maker at your next hot prospect.

NetProspex and Lead411 run competing lead recycling services. If you have a large marketing list several clearinghouses will help broker the sale of these to other interested companies.

Sales data recycling won’t bring that sale back, but it can help you get an upper hand on that next deal you’re chasing.

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Effective Data Disposal Methods

November 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Computers are disposed of various reasons. Many are cleaned up and donated while others are sent to recycling centers and even the dump. One problem people have with donating or recycling data is the issue of data protection. Some persons think that simply deleting information and emptying the computer’s trash gets rid of stored electronic information.

To ensure that data is not accessed by unauthorized personnel, total erasure is important. The fear of unauthorized access actually results in some companies storing old hard drives that are no longer needed. Regulations and laws such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act demand proper data protection. This heavily impacts disposal of data and media used to store it. Luckily there are many ways that data protection can be ensured when recycling or donating computers.

To ensure that data stored on a computer hard drive or other storage media is properly disposed of, these methods can be used: shredding, degaussing, demagnetizing, over writing and physical destruction. Shredding of hard drives is now quite common. Degaussing, while used to some extent for hard drives is more commonly used for magnetic tapes.

Physical destruction of electronic media includes cutting CDs, and dismantling optical discs and hard drives. Some of these storage devices can now be shredded in special machines created to ensure total destruction of electronic storage devices. Physically pulling apart drives gives better results if the parts are not disposed of in the same place. This is time consuming, but can work in situations where there is not a lot of media to destroy.

When it comes to printed information, shredding, pulverizing, burning and inking with chemicals are popular disposal methods. Depending on the method used, the paper can sometimes be recycled.

Physical destruction of data, whether stored on electronic media or paper effectively renders information unrecoverable. This type of disposal method is best utilized for very sensitive information. It makes dumpster diving something that you do not have to worry about.

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Recycle Everything from Glass to the Personal Finance News

September 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment

When starting to recycle, whether at home or in the office, one thing you will want to make sure you recycle is paper. Many people do not think to recycle paper, but it is one of the easiest materials to recycle. So, what kinds of paper can you recycle? That memo that got put on everyone’s desk would be a good option. Scratch paper that you used to take notes makes for great recycling. At home, make sure that you recycle old mail. Once you’ve read through the paper, recycle that as well. Just be sure you read through the personal finance news before you throw it in the bin.

One thing that many people do think to recycle is soda cans. If you are currently not doing this, look into recycling centers near you. They may be able to take the soda cans you collect and recycle them. Some facilities even go so far as to give you a small amount of money for the cans you bring them. Not only are you helping the environment with this, but also your pocket book. So get everyone together–coworkers, friends and family, grab their soda cans, take them to the local recycling facility, and cash in.

Recycling glass is something that many people don’t think about, but is something that you may want to start doing, especially if you are concerned about the environment. Glass takes a huge amount of energy to produce, but using recycled glass to make new products decreases this amount significantly. Make sure that your local facility will take glass, and find out what the requirements are before you try to take glass to be recycled.

No matter what you are recycling, you will want to make sure you know all of the requirements of the recycling facility. Simply give them a call, and they will be happy to tell you.

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Are Your Recycling Data For The First Time?

August 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Data recycling has become mandatory in this era of hacking and phishing attacks. Though many of us undertake effective methods to recycle our vital data, it still gets into the wrong hands and leads to identity thefts and phishing attacks. So if you have decided to recycle your data and are thinking of the proper methods of doing so, read on to find out more.

Most individuals wipe their hard disk clean assuming that this would remove all vital information and data. However, this is a misconception and there are commonly available software tools which can recover the data within minutes and leave you exposed to risks. Many specialists and experts suggest wiping down the hard disk and other media three times but still there is a problem of data leaks and identity thefts. To counteract these issues one needs to ensure that there is a fool proof method of getting rid of data once and for all and these methods come in the form of clearing, cleansing and destroying. Though these three methods are permanent they do damage the media and prevent it from being used again.

Before you decide to recycle your data, make sure any stored information is not going to be needed again, and if you are going to entrust this task to someone else, make it a point to stay along with them while data is being recycled. For this there are specific experts who offer on-site data recycling methods and though they are a little more expensive then the regular data recycling methods, you can be assured that things are being erased right in front of you.

Cleaning, cleansing and destroying are the final stages of data destruction. It cannot be reused again and the damage is permanent. There are many companies who offer the data-erasing and elimination services and it depends on you to choose which method works for you. However, if you think that there is nothing much on your storage media that can cause any harm then the least destructive of all methods is data-erasing and overwriting.

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Data Recycling: Degaussing

April 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Degaussing is a method to permanently remove data in the most secure manner and eliminate all information about an individual or a company. If you are using a degausser for the first time, ensure that the equipment falls under the specific standards of the government or the Department of Defense (DOD) or National Security Agency (NSA). These entities have a set of regulations which indicate or specify the various ways of eliminating private data.

Misinformed people think that the easiest method of eliminating data is to purchase a degausser; however, using the services of a degausser company makes things simpler. Yet choosing the right degausser service company needs caution and homework.

Many users and recycling firms are not aware of the concept of  Transfer of Liability. With regard to hard drives and magnetically stored data, there are consequences which can haunt you if you do not choose the right degausser company.

It is always wise to ask questions before you decide to use the services of a degausser company. You can start off by asking the company what type of degausser would be used to eliminate the data and how old the degausser is. This can give you a clear idea about how your degausser is going to destroy the data.

Another important question is finding our whether the degausser has been tested earlier and where the tests were conducted. While these questions could put one at discomfort, a genuine and reliable firm would answer all your questions. You can also find out when the degausser was tested, if they knew whether it actually worked, and what types of accountability programs they have. One can also confirm how they are going to eliminate the data and whether they would be logging into your drives to do so. Finding out if the degausser firm has a return authorization to track your media or whether they are going to overwrite or degauss and then resell your hard drive or media are vital questions you definitely need to ask. The liability is with you, so better do your homework.

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