Evan Schuman

Generous people wanting to help victims of Hurricane Katrina should direct their financial contributions carefully, so that the money isnt diverted by e-commerce thieves. Scammers taking advantage of the disaster dont need much capital or personnel: The Web provides them all they need in the way of cover, illusion and false identities. Firstly, there was […]

It has been said that CIOs at large companies today have limited direct power and—more than almost any other C-level executive—need to push the IT/business agenda by persuasion and by maintaining good relations with other stakeholders. Taking that to heart, the CIO of Overstock.com recently sent off a note to key business partners taking the […]

Are consumers seeing self-checkout as the anti-customer-service initiative they feared? Not according to the latest industry study, which predicts self-checkout revenue will double this year (compared with 2004) to $161 billion, and could hit $454 billion by 2008. The study, conducted by retail consulting firm IHL Consulting Group, is far more interesting than those numbers […]

With almost 3,000 stores in all 50 states, the Rent-A-Center retail chain needs to be able to expand quickly and easily. But its business model allows for customers to rent and return merchandise with little notice, forcing store layouts to be flexible. What if 30 customers return mattresses to the same store tomorrow? Tony Fuller, […]

A major regional fast-food chain—with 433 restaurants in the Southeastern United States—is going to offer free wireless connections to anyone who wants to surf while sitting in a burger joint. The Krystal Co. (the nations second-oldest fast-food restaurant chain, founded in 1932) is clearly hoping that a lot of customers will be intrigued and will […]

At a time when IT executives are finding users less and less tolerant of network delays, CIO William Morgan has perhaps the least tolerant set of users in the world. Morgan runs technology operations for the 215-year-old Philadelphia Stock Exchange, the nations first stock exchange. But its age doesnt make its daily load any easier, […]

Typically, a CIO arguing for a $30 to $40 million IT investment for new payment systems has to answer a lot of questions from a skeptical CEO, chief financial officer and board members. But that wasnt the recent experience of Canadian Tire Corp. CIO Andrew Wnek. Wnek reports to the CEO and runs IT for […]

In the Information Age that were in, quality of information trumps quantity every time. And for CIOs, thats good news. But theres a big piece of bad news, too. The flood of information at the command of customers is both good and bad, and many customers—especially consumers—rarely can tell the difference. Consider a consumer who […]

When it comes to privacy issues, the online airline/travel industry is moving in the opposite direction from most industries and is using personal data more aggressively than it did just a few months ago, according to a new report from an industry consulting firm. Excluding privacy, the travel industry is doing quite well in terms […]

Top payment-system executives traveled to Washington on Thursday to try to convince members of Congress that no new laws are needed for credit card payment security, that the industry can police itself just fine. But the facts delivered during the testimony told a very different story. What forced the hearing was a well-publicized security breach […]