Small Businesses Worry About MS Anti-Phishing 291
prostoalex writes "Ever get that warm feeling of safety, when the anti-phishing toolbar on Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 turns green, telling you it's safe to shop on the site you're visiting? Well, you probably don't, but the millions of Internet users who will soon be running IE7 probably will be paying attention to the anti-phishing warnings. WSJ.com is reporting on how Microsoft is making it tough for small businesses to assure they're treated properly by the anti-phishing algorithm." From the article: "[S]ole proprietorships, general partnerships and individuals won't be eligible for the new, stricter security certificates that Microsoft requires to display the color. There are about 20.6 million sole proprietorships and general partnerships in the U.S... though it isn't clear how many are engaged in e-commerce... 'Are people going to trust the green more than white? Yes, they will,' says Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner Inc. and an expert on online payments and fraud. 'All the business is going to go to the greens, it's kind of obvious.'"
Spend the extra time and setup your biz correctly! (Score:5, Informative)
Reason? I made damn sure that I'm incorporated as either a limited liability company (L.L.C) (www.3dprints4less.com - not up yet) or a S-corporation (www.seattleprototypes.com).
In this day and age of litigation, there is NO reason why if you're going into businses you should even consider sole proprietarship or general partnership agreement. IANAL, but go pick up any of the Nolo self-help books (recomemnded by lawyer friends) and they make it clear: The LLC and corp status is a bit more paperwork to upkeep, but offers MUCH better protection for the business owners. As a sole proprietarship, you are personally liable - down to your last nickel in your bank account, if your business incurs any liabilities. As a general partnership, you would be personally held liable for not only your business's liabilities, but the action of your partners well (if your partner racks up a debt, skips town, and the creditor have easy access to you - guess who's in the hot seat).
Not to mention, there's huge benifits you can get tax wise, from being a corporation or LLC. Corporate tax rates are a heck of a lot lower for one!
So, Aunt Joy making custom stockings, please, go pick up a self help book and get your business setup properly. This way some slimebag ambulance chaser can't sue you out of the house you're growing old in when some irresponsible parent let their kid chew off a bit of the stocking and the kid chokes on it.
-=- Terence
Re:WTF? Phising and certs are different issues. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How does the Phishing thing work? (Score:5, Informative)
White is the default state, and says nothing about the site.
Red is when the site matches a blacklist of known phishing sites. (If you have the antiphishing turned on, it will check with MS each time you load a new page.)
Green is when the site uses one of these new SSL certificates which provides additional data and (supposedly) has a tougher approval process in which the certificate authority does an actual background check on the company instead of just making sure they have a working phone number. One hopes a blacklist hit will trump this.
A secure site that uses a standard SSL cert and is not a known phisher will have a white location bar.
Re:going to have come up with a better way (Score:1, Informative)
usually caused by somebody not noticing that they actually are on the correct site, and just say "hmm, must be a phishing" site. or worse yet.. "this isnt a phishing site, so i'll click it so it doesnt ask me again."
needless to say, its a nightmare, espically for somebody who could potentially lose busisness to this issue.
there must be a check & balance sort of situation available for this.
Re:How does the Phishing thing work? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sole Proprietorship (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Why is this unfair? (Score:3, Informative)
Why should I be forced to pay someone to create a website and rent a server when a brick-and-mortar storefront is JUST AS LEGITIMATE as a web storefront?
Fact is, you're not. Nobody is forcing you to spend money to incorporate. But just like if you want to sell on the internet, you need to pay for a website, if you want a certifying authority to certify your identity, then you need to meet the requirements for being certified. Nobody is FORCING you to do it, but if you're not willing to prove your identity by getting incorporated, then the certifying authority isn't willing to certify your identity either.
This isn't about whether a sole proprietorship is JUST AS LEGITIMATE as a corporation, whatever 'just as legitimate' means. It's about having a standard of what it means to have a certified business identity. Corporations have state records about who they are, and who their registered agents are. Sole proprietorships do not. If, as a sole proprietorship, you claim you are "Al's Used Cars", how do I know that you're actually Al's Used Cars? Just because you say you are? What's to prevent some other person from coming along and saying THEY are Al's Used Cars? As a certifying authority, how do I tell which one of you is the real Al's Used Cars and which one of you is full of it?
With Corporations, if someone comes to me and says they are Apple Computer, I can go to the state records office and find out who the registered agent for Apple Computer is and make sure I'm dealing with the real Apple Computer.
Getting a certificate of identity requires having a verifiable identity. As a business, the only way to have a verifiable identity is to incorporate.
So why should you be forced to pay more money? Because if you don't, you don't have a business identity to verify, and thus can't get a green address bar. And you don't deserve one.
Re:WTF? Phising and certs are different issues. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Why is this unfair? (Score:5, Informative)
If you can't get a certificate as a sole proprietorship, INCORPORATE! Problem solved. [...] And this day in this sue-happy age, there's plenty of other reasons incorporation is a good idea.
Sole proprietor here. As someone who has spent a lot of time and energy looking at sole proprietorship vs llc vs s-corp incorporation, let me just mention that (contrary to popular belief) incorporation isn't some magic bullet that completely shields business owners/officers from liability - just ask Ken Lay. Incorporation does help shield business owners from the incompetence/misconduct of other employees. Of course this doesn't matter in one-person companies where (by definition) all the business decisions are made by the business owners.
Incorporation does, in theory, separate business assets from personal assets. However, in our "sue-happy" environment, there is a very easy way to get around this separation: simply sue the business *and* the owner.
There are scenarios when it makes sense to incorporate: lower tax rates (only worth it for six-figure revenues by my calcs), if you have employees, if you have multiple locations, if you're trying to establish a Chinese wall for separate-but-related business, etc.
Incorporating in my case (1-person business) would mean hiring a lawyer and accountant to file the annual state forms, draw up the stock agreement, and file the taxes in return for a few hundred dollars in tax savings and pretty much no liability protection. I found it was much cheaper to buy gen liability and E&O insurance (needed anyway for certain gov't contracts I have), and remain a sole proprietor. I imagine that this is true for hundreds (if not thousands) of other businesses across the US.
Re:Yeah, they will. (Score:4, Informative)
I live in China. I was trying to think of some evidence you could actually see short of catching a plane. And while a box of loose screws would obviously be made to whatever spec the customer wanted, internal screws for consumer appliances, which is what I meant, not loose screws, would be whatever was available to the factory and cheapest -- having been involved with export, cost is everything. Why would they increase costs by using a different kind of screw that has no inherent benefits? Historically, China's heavy inudstry was based on Russain technology, which in turn was copied mostly from Europe. More recently, Japanese, based on US standards, though fortuantely mostly metricated.
I still fail to understand why anyone would imagine LH screws would be standard in China.
PS. Chinese vaginas aren't sloped sideways either.
Re:going to have come up with a better way (Score:2, Informative)
Things beyond that should not be part of (or optional during) the installation of that operating system.
You appear to be advocating the academic definition of "operating system" should be the only one. Given that such a definition would preclude "operating systems" including such basic functionality as shells (GUI, CLI, or otherwise) out of the box, how much of a market do you think there's going to be for such "operating systems" ?
The term "operating system" hasn't meant what you want it to mean in the marketplace for decades (generously assuming it ever has). IE has as much justification for being in a default Windows install as bash does in a default Linux installation. The market has overwhelmingly indicated that it wants its operating systems to include more than a kernel and some hardware drivers as standard. Get over it.
Re:WTF? Phising and certs are different issues. (Score:3, Informative)