Data Worries Stunt E-Commerce, Online Banking

I can believe that this is happening but Avivah Litan of Gartner's negativity is a little much:

"It looks like the bonanza of e-commerce is going to stop."

Her comments about getting a law passed allowing consumers to limit how their information is shared with third parties is equally pessimistic and I think a little out of the realm of Internet researchers:

"That'll never happen," said Litan. "The financial services companies will argue that opt-out would slow down the business of extending credit to consumers. And they spend millions on campaign contributions. The privacy groups, in comparison, have no money at all.

"It often comes down to who are the largest contributors to political campaigns," she added.

Thanks Avivah for the civics lesson.

Cash, Charge or Fingerprint?

I like this idea a lot. You don't have to remember to bring anything except your finger. Eventually we may not have to carry any identification or keys at all.

Easy check fraud technique draws scrutiny

"...consumers should realize that checking account numbers are just as valuable to criminals as credit card numbers and should be treated with similar care."

This I did not know.

If demand drafts are the problem and they were created to accomodate telemarketers, why not make telemarketing illegal? Okay, that's extreme but I think any time you can blame telemarketing, you should.

Bank of America gets personal

This could become the defacto two factor authentication. 13.2 million online banking users is a large chunk of the whole.

The only thing I don't get about this system is why you have to login from a registered IP address to see the image? Is this to remind users that they need to be wary because they are not at their regular PC? Are the images stored on the individual PCs rather than BoA servers? More research is needed.

Just wave to pay

This is a terrific idea because it makes the transition to contactless payment easier; the user can use the card just like a regular card in the places where a contactless reader isn't available.