While preparing for a trip I came across this in the "pick your question" selectbox on priceline.com
While preparing for a trip I came across this in the _pick your question_ selectbox on priceline.com.
I blinked. What? My “preferred internet password?” For access to your worthless rewards program?
Let’s skip over the implication that I have just one password I use (or try to use) everywhere and concentrate on the fact that Priceline puts my “internet password” in the same bucket of superficially-meaningless-but-difficult-to-guess information as my dog’s name and my favorite movie.
Screw you, Priceline. First, for confusing personal information with confidential information. Personal information is what color my house is. Very few people know (or care), but I do and can recall this information easily, and it can be used to distinguish me from some random jerk or bot. Confidential information is my social security number. Passwords are confidential; don’t ask for them in the same breath you ask my favorite flavor of ice cream.
Second, screw you for teaching my Mom that passwords aren’t confidential. (And here, I’m using “Mom” in the rhetorical sense. My actual mother is much smarter than my rhetorical mother.) The grocery store asks her phone number for their rewards program, and you ask her “preferred internet password?” To her, it makes these things equivalent. Never mind the point that the grocery store shouldn’t even be asking for her phone number. You’re undermining the work of those who care about her (and their own) security. In short, you’re behaving like a crook.
Third, screw you for reinforcing my rhetorical mom’s notion that it’s okay to have one password everywhere. For God’s sake, it’s 2010, and it sucks that we don’t have some kind of retina-scan thing figured out, but EVERYONE on the honest web has an obligation be be responsible with users’ data and to reinforce (and sometimes require) good security habits in those users, and you’re blowing it.
This is exactly the sort of thing that led us to a place where things like this Facebook-recognition catastrophe happen.
If anyone wants to voice their frustration and disappointment with Priceline, I encourage you to use their feedback form.