Brand Ng

Walgreens sends flu shot DM with creepy pre-filled form

It's the beginning of flu season, and Walgreens has been sending out DM, hoping to convince recipients to get a flu shot at their stores instead of from a doctor.  That's all good and well, but their approach was to send me a pre-populated form so that I wouldn't have to fill it out at the pharmacy.  

My visceral reaction was to shred the document that included my personal information.  In fact, I did so within a millisecond of seeing it: that's why you don't see it in the photos.

Rationally, I know that Walgreen's keeps all of my prescription information, including a history far more detailed than the one held by my primary physician.  But I don't want to be reminded that Walgreens is storing that information in a massive database, analyzing it, mixing it with my purchase data and using it to sell me goods and services. Especially medical services.  

All they've done with this DM is to reinforce the idea that I cannot truly trust them to safeguard my information or to use it wisely.

 

Here's the front of the mailer and a blank form.  Click to see at full size.

P.S. Please, don't mistake this post as a criticism of getting a flu shot.  With few exceptions, getting the shot is the right thing to do for your own health and the health of those around you.  I got mine from my doctor, after a physical.

MySpace and the invention of crime

If you're an internet user (and I have it on good authority that you are), you need to know about this under-reported cyberbullying case because it affects you in broad, unintended ways.

You may have heard about Lori Drew, a scumbag/overly active parent who used MySpace to befriend and then bully Megan Meier, a 13 year old girl.  Meier was a nemesis of Drew's teenage daugher. 

Lori Drew pretended to be a 16-year old boy interested in Meier.  Possibly as a result of some of Drew's carefully crafted, malicious messages, Meier committed suicide in October, 2006.  To be fair, Drew has since been found Not Guilty of intent to injure. 

Now it's natural for all of us, me included, to want to send Drew (and other various cronies who shared her fake MySpace account) to prison.  But what Drew did, in itself, was not a crime when she committed the act.  That's NOT the outrage, however, since internet harassment is now against the law in MO and since federal prosecutors still decided to go after her.  What's causing problems is that the Feds charged Drew under the auspices of a Federal anti-hacking statute.  They argued that Drew was committing a FEDERAL CRIME simply by violating MySpace's Terms of Service. 

So why should last week's guilty ruling concern you, assuming it is not overturned?  Two big reasons:

1. The first reason is that any website will now be able to write federal law.  Anyone will be able to create arbitrary Terms of Service which are not subject to the legislative process, but can be used to prosecute you in federal court.  In fact, it's the website owner that defines what is a violation of its terms of service.  Or so says a laundry list of legal scholars who submitted an amicus brief via the EFF. 
2. The second reason is that you now owe me $75 or you're going to jail.  Check my Terms of Service, sucker!