complaint

On Wednesday, the FBI and its partner, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), warned against a new e-mail campaign being used by the creators of the Storm Worm botnet.

The e-mail uses the the phrase "F.B.I. vs. Facebook" in its subject line and contains a link to view an article about the FBI and Facebook, a popular social networking website. Clicking on the link downloads malicious software onto the victim's computer.

"The spammers spreading this virus are preying on Internet users and making their computers an unwitting part of criminal botnet activity," said … Read more

This post was updated at 10:34 a.m. PDT with further details of the server issues.

NEW YORK--The process of obtaining an iPhone 3G appears to be going in slow motion because of AT&T activation server crashes that have been confirmed in New York, San Francisco, and Palo Alto, Calif.

Unlike its predecessor last year, the iPhone 3G must be activated in-store, an antihacking measure that Apple had said could take 10 to 15 minutes.

That's long enough to make the line move a lot more slowly than the speedy process that made last year's … Read more

Cold calls from telemarketers and other companies that ignore the do-not-call list are one of the banes of modern day civilization.

A simple Google search for a mystery number you've received usually lets you know who's on the other end before you have to pick it up. The problem is that cell phones don't have the same quality of caller ID landlines get (numbers not names); so that call you're getting could be something important like an overdue library book, or a pushy desk jockey trying to sell you a heavily discounted hafnium-forged non-stick pan … Read more

The mystery over what prompted eBay to sue Craigslist last week appears to be solved.

Apparently eBay feels that its ownership stake in Craigslist was unfairly reduced following eBay's launch of rival online classifieds service Kijiji, which went live overseas in 2005 and in the U.S. in 2007, according to the 26-page lawsuit filed in Delaware's Court of Chancery and made available by eBay on Wednesday.

According to the heavily redacted, public copy of the complaint, which names Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist views Kijiji as a competitive activity that cancels some shareholder … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Could your customer complaint department become a profit center?

That general idea is now possible with the era of corporate blogging and Web 2.0 upon us, according to a number of marketing gurus at a panel discussion Tuesday at the Ad:Tech conference here.

Earning loyalty by winning over critics is nothing new for marketing and customer support experts. What is new these days is that the increasingly interactive Internet provides a way to directly engage with them--once companies understand it's possible.

"There is a real gap in organizations between the group that handles the complaint … Read more

Worried about online auction fraud? If you're a man you should be, according to the latest Internet Crime Complaint Center report (in PDF). On average, men lost more money to online fraud than women in 2007. Men also perpetrated most of the online crime, accounting for 75 percent of the total reports last year. And while the overall number of complaints declined when compared with previous years, the total dollar value in losses rose to a record high of $239 million in losses in 2007. That's $40 million more than in 2006.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) … Read more

Samsung was the first to market with a Blu-ray player, but it hasn't exactly been a smooth ride. Home theater enthusiasts will undoubtedly remember the brouhaha over the first Blu-ray player, the Samsung BD-P1000, which was blamed for the initial lackluster video performance of Blu-ray (although, we always thought the fault lied more with poor movie transfers, rather than the BD-P1000). More recently, we've blogged the entire slate of firmware fixes Samsung has released to correct compatibility issues with certain discs on its entire line of Blu-ray players.

Apparently those firmware fixes aren't enough for everyone, as … Read more

Complaining about an injustice is rarely enough to effect change. But when dozens, hundreds, or thousands of people kvetch in an organized and forceful manner, things can happen. Boycotts change companies. Unions end up controlling the direction of industries. Protests overthrow governments.

The Point is a new site to help instigators collect the wishes of the masses and to get participants to pledge to take action when a "tipping point" of participation is reached.

For example, if you are upset that Southwest Airlines no longer lets families with small children board first, you can join the pledge to … Read more