Great posts. One of the few I come across every now and again that isn’t riddled with insults to written language in general, let alone the English language.

I’m on the fence about Mint.com at the moment. I have signed up for it before, after reading all the industry endorsements. However, I still found it uneasy to hand over all my information to a third party that has no real interest in protecting my data. Their interests lie in serving you advertisements, something which does require user trust to hand over financial information to tailor appropriate advertisements, but that’s the only reason that they would want to keep your information secret.

Now, I don’t claim that they do anything uncouth; in fact I whole-heartedly believe that they put in a whole bucket full of good hard work to keep my data safe. It’s always that lingering question though…. What if?

What if they lose my data? What if someone FINDS my data, and uses it? Uses my credit cards? Clears my bank accounts? Who’s liable here?

Mint.com disclaims (or disclaimed in the past, at least) any damage in excess of $500 resulting from compromised data. I also assume that credit card companies, banks, and other financial institutions don’t really feel like reimbursing you for blunders of parties that aren’t themselves, which is in all likelihood reflected in their terms of use (or equivalent documentation).

While I haven’t researched this in-depth, I have seen other posts that mention various individual companies that have clauses which indemnify them from damages incurred due to the negligence of either yourself or a third party with regard to your password, credit card number, et cetera.

Didn’t mean to launch into a rant there, but I’m interested to hear what you & your readers have to think about this subject.

Cheers,

Xio

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