There’s a funny little symbol used on some checkout pages on the Internet. (Not showing it here, but you’ve seen it, though maybe you didn’t notice it.) It’s a Norton (“Norton Secured”) thing and it’s supposed to mean that the site is secure and safe for giving your purchase info to.
That symbol used to be Verisign. Apparently Norton bought Verisign, or that aspect of Verisign at least, with all their ill-gotten booty (or ill-booten gotty, to quote someone famous)(1).
My point here is that when I see that symbol it does NOT raise my confidence in that site. When it was Verisign I could say “well, maybe this site is secure.” When it’s Norton… and given that Norton is one of the crummiest antiviruses out there (per independent testing, not my opinion only(2)) how good can their Okey-Dokey actually be? Impossible to tell, and that’s the problem.
And it’s not fair, because maybe they really do ensure the site is safe(r). Maybe. When a lazy company(3) that is only interested in profit “ensures” my safety — and I’m the consumer — what does that actually mean?
What does that symbol actually guarantee? Does it mean the site is GUARANTEED 100% safe? Does it mean I can recoop losses from Norton? Does it guarantee me anything at all? It doesn’t say.
There impossible to say what the symbol actually means or even why it’s there.
Therefore: it’s not a helpful symbol. Not to me.
(As always — these articles are my opinion only, and are subject to being wrong just like any other Human in this silly 21st Century culture. But it’s based on my experience and the data I currently have. So there, as they say.)
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(1) Ill-gotten, because Norton ships on approximately 50% of all new computers as “free” except that to activate it you have to give up a credit card and then they stick you for subscription fees. Also, ill-gotten because they don’t tell you they are one of the worst anti-virus programs out there. Occasionally they are rated among the top-15 by more than one independent testing lab [as of the last time I checked], and not always rated that high. Also ill-gotten because most consumer-grade computer users don’t know about the many, many other options. Even more: ill-gotten because Windows ships with a built-in antivirus that is usually rated among the top-5 (top-5!) and is FREE!. Just uninstall Norton and Windows Defender takes over. Free. <Sigh>
(2) Though my opinion is a professional one, as I’ve been a computer professional longer than Verisign (still a company) has been a company.
(3) Noton somehow keeps their reputation from decades ago when they actually did care about the quality of what they were doing. They’ve been a bad antivirus product for about two decades now. Same as many of the initial companies in the industry, started by brilliant, visionary techies who actually cared about the potentials of comptuers to raise the quality of life, not to exploit the consumer. (Oh well. The consumer’s as much to blame there as is 21st Century corporate attitudes.)