With so many data breaches happening these days, it is hard to keep track if and where you have become a victim. To help check to see if your personal data has been compromised, right at the top of the homepage of Money magazine, the publication is offering to do a free search.
What an easy and valuable service they are providing… except for one thing.
*MOUSE PRINT:
What? In order to find out about any breaches you may have suffered, you are also signing up for advertising emails not just from Money but from others too.
That’s nasty.
The service that Money is using for the data searches is HaveIBeenPwned? which you can access directly for free. They say they do not retain your email address except if you subscribe to be alerted to future breaches.
For 25 years, Consumer World, the creator of Mouse Print*, has served readers with the latest consumer news, money-saving tips, and independent investigations. It is your generosity (and not advertising nor corporate contributions) that keeps Mouse Print* and Consumer World available as free consumer resources. So MrConsumer turns to you and humbly asks for your support again this year. Your gift will be most appreciated.
MrConsumer recently got an email from Choice Hotels with some bad news. It said that his accumulated points in their rewards program were about to expire.
The fine print explained how to keep one’s points from disappearing. Basically you have to earn or redeem points every 18 months or they go bye-bye.
*MOUSE PRINT:
So I looked to see what one could get for 5,000 points. Seemed like a nice round number — surely there was something of value available. But all the gift cards required 8,000 points at a minimum, such as this one.
I did see that I could convert the points to American Airlines frequent flyer miles, but would only get 1,000 miles for my 5,000 points. Nonetheless, that seemed like the best option for me, so I called Choice customer service to make the transfer.
I explained the situation to the agent on the phone, Ken (a female), and she said “let me see what I can do for you.” After reviewing my account, she said that as a one-time courtesy, she would bump up my account from 5,160 points to 8,000 points so I could redeem them for a gift certificate right then and there.
What? WOW! She wished me a Merry Christmas, and proceeded to process a $25 Home Depot gift card for me.
I thanked Ken profusely. What amazing and unexpected customer service she provided! But it would be nice if Choice eliminated their points expiration policy just as most airlines have in their own frequent flyer programs.
We turn to news sites like CNBC, USA Today, CNN and many others for news stories written by seasoned reporters independent of the advertising sales side of these businesses. So, we can generally expect the stories we see on those sites not to be advertising in disguise, or somehow tempered by the writer’s knowledge that the subject of the story advertises on that site, right?
More and more, however, big name news sites are blurring the line between conventional news stories written by the site’s journalists, and what is called “commerce content.” The whole purpose of commerce content is to publish what look like news or feature stories but whose purpose is really to sell stuff to readers thereby allowing the site to earn a commission. All this is done under the aura of the well-known and trusted name of the news site on which these articles appear.
Here is an advertisement for CNN Underscored which reviews various products:
If you go to CNN Underscored directly, or from a search result, you will find a long list of stories such as ones about buying the best laptop, or finding the best cash back credit card.
At the top of the site, however, there is a fine print disclaimer:
*MOUSE PRINT:
CNN Underscored is your guide to the everyday products and services that help you live a smarter, simpler and more fulfilling life. The content is created by CNN Underscored. CNN News staff is not involved. When you make a purchase, we receive revenue. [color added for emphasis]
That’s right. CNN (and the other sites mentioned below) typically use other writers and reporters to write these stories to help lead you to make a purchase and thus compensate the website’s publisher.
Interestingly, in its “About Us” section, CNN says that the Underscored staff doesn’t always test the products themselves but rather reads others’ reviews or other organizations’ test results as part of its research process.
Below is a Who’s Who of news media with either whole sections devoted to these sales pitches dressed up to look like regular consumer stories, or who intermingle commerce content or sponsored stories with legitimate news stories. Some do a better job than others in researching the subject matter of the story and thus provide a valuable service. Most of them do a relatively poor job in disclosing that they make money if you make a purchase from the links in their articles.
So many news sites are now promoting links from which they can get paid that the Wall Street Journal has put a disclaimer at the end of some of its stories saying that it is NOT receiving any such compensation:
*MOUSE PRINT:
The trouble with these types of stories on many of the news websites is that they often are listed in Google News or Bing News when doing searches of news stories. So you have to look carefully at ANY news story to see if it is a regular news feature or a story designed to get you to buy a product or service.
For 25 years, Consumer World, the creator of Mouse Print*, has served readers with the latest consumer news, money-saving tips, and independent investigations. It is your generosity (and not advertising nor corporate contributions) that keeps Mouse Print* and Consumer World available as free consumer resources. So MrConsumer turns to you and humbly 
