1. Create a “disposable” e-mail account that you use to sign up with various websites. It’ll keep your main e-mail account “cleaner,” and prevent firms from tracking you across sites. 2. Create a fake persona, complete with birthday and phone number, that you can use to sign up for grocery [Keep reading]
The arrival of Labor Day is like the playing of “Last Dance,” at a wedding. What, it’s over already? But we just started dancing… Endings are hard, and always sneak up us, but they must be marked. Consider this my farewell to readers of MSNBC’s Red Tape Chronicles…and the announcement [Keep reading]
How much longer can cable and other pay TV providers charge us $100 per month for….we’re not so sure? Storm clouds are gathering in the form of a new wave of new competition, and it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of corporations. Consumers are now perfectly comfortable watching TV [Keep reading]
“MSN is going to be better than the web.” If you want to know why Steve Ballmer was such a failure, you don’t have to look much farther than that sentiment. I heard it when was a Microsoft intern in 1995, arriving in Redmond just a few months before the [Keep reading]
Throughout the NSA/Ed Snowden surveillance scandal, the so-called FISA court that secretly reviews government spying orders has been cast as little more than a rubber stamp. With the release of a 2011 FISA court opinion on Wednesday, you can throw that opinion out, along with the notion that the NSA [Keep reading]
s smartphone viruses creep closer to U.S. shores, malicious programmers behind them have become more ingenious, according to a report issued Tuesday by computer security firm McAfee. Predictably, it’s all about the money — that is, hackers are learning how to turn your smartphone into cash for them. One year ago, state-of-the-art [Keep reading]
When was the last time you tried to give a company $100 and it refused to take it? That happened to me this week as I bargained with Sirius XM Radio over continuing my membership to the satellite radio service. I said I would renew for a year, but only [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan popularized the term “Gotcha Capitalism” with publication of his New York Times best-selling book of the same name. Gotchas — such as hidden fees — are annoying on a daily basis to consumers. But Sullivan argues they have also changed the way our economy works. Gotchas are the [Keep reading]
Saying “no” is every consumers’ most important skill. Don’t worry, you’ll have a chance to practice nearly everywhere you go. One great place to practice: at Jiffy Lube, the ubiquitous oil change franchise. In fact, I’d recommend standing in front of a mirror and drilling yourself in saying a quiet [Keep reading]
American consumers owe less and are paying their bills on time more, the New York Federal Reserve said in a report released Wednesday. The results certainly sound cheery, but debt data is notoriously subject to interpretation. What’s true for you is also true for the country: Some debt is good, [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan