OT: Registering/Accounts with online vendors

[Michael]

> Would someone please explain to me a so-called "feature" of many
> commercial retailers who do business on the world wide web?
>
> I'm talking about the website retailer's requirement that a potential
> buyer (in this case, me) establish an account (with my email address
> plus password) before I can place an order.
>
> In my opinion, not only is this a potential privacy problem (identity
> theft), it's also a potential security problem (credit card theft).

Along with the obvious benefits of tracking users habits and being able to
resale contact information there are some real reasons why ecommerce sites
usually require you have an account to purchase. Most of them have to do
with liability and credit card hassles. If you sell anything remotely
'adult' you want to have some sort of record of the user verifying their
age and identity. Also because credit cards are so friendly to consumers
about giving refunds and businesses really hate to eat those costs
(especially if the chargeback was fraud) so the more information they can
collect and record the better their chance of successfully proving the
transaction was legit and that they've done everything they could to
please the customer.

On the other hand it's generally extremely simple to bypass all these
checks and anyone that is familiar with the system could easily order any
number of items on a stolen card without being caught. Really all those
'security' features do is eliminate the more numerous but less painful
troubles. A lot of users do like having an order history and similar
features though.