Evan Schuman

In an effort to force online shoppers to use their online tools—and only their online tools—Walmart.com has decided to continue its online telephone help desk, but—I swear Im not making this up—not tell anyone the phone number. In the most literal example of the “dont call us, well call you” attitude Ive seen in quite […]

When a federal court judge issued rulings Oct. 2 that the $60 billion retailer Target needed to stand trial on charges that its Web site is not sufficiently accessible to visually-impaired shoppers, it sent a strong signal to much of the e-commerce space. Target has long been the most prominent opponent of forcing e-commerce site […]

When a PCI audit firm released its annual summary of PCI audit weaknesses, a comparison with the prior year showed retailers are still struggling with the same issues. For 2007, the most frequently failed credit card security requirements are regular testing, secure applications, protecting data and enforcing unique user IDs, according to a Sept. 17 […]

Consumers trying to make purchases from the Walmart.com Web site wont be able to phone for help anymore. Pointing to improvements to the Web site, Wal-Mart officials said phone support is no longer needed and is shutting it down. Critics label the move as a reckless act of cost-cutting that will quickly haunt Wal-Mart. The […]

When it comes to global downtime, Google doesnt seem to play favorites. Among 32 key countries Google plays in locally, its home country of the United States came in near the bottom, in position 26, with 31 minutes of downtime from Sept. 1, 2006, to Sept. 1, 2007, according to Web performance survey results released […]

The typical American business executive likes incremental changes, like, perhaps, an 18 percent speed increase. Or maybe a little bit more efficiency over here, and some additional functionality over there. PowerPoint slides to the contrary, a paradigm shift is the last one thing most executives honestly want because, to the typical executive with a large […]

The federal judge overseeing the consumer portion of the TJX case wants to see TJX vouchers offered in the proposed settlement replaced by cash. U.S. District Court Judge William Young told attorneys in a hearing in Boston Sept. 27 that he “had a lot of questions and concerns” about the settlement, in which wronged consumers […]

TJX is still retaining customer data for far too long—months—and for the wrong reasons, although its current wireless efforts appear adequate, according to a report issued Sept. 25 by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta. The report shed light on a few […]

When TJX announced Sept. 21 that it had worked out a settlement for all of the consumer lawsuits that had been filed against it, it provided an anticlimactic ending to much of this data breach saga. But in many ways, this resolution—with a settlement offer that will cause TJX very little material pain—was inevitable. Despite […]

TJXs Sept. 21 multipart settlement of all of the consumer lawsuits against it for its massive data breach is a fascinating denouement to the TJX saga. What makes this latest twist so delicious is that TJX has played this debacle the way a retailer should, assuming the retailer is Niccolo Machiavelli. When admitting to a […]