Sam Hamer, Public Policy Intern Summer is finally here! Unfortunately, along with cicadas and lazy afternoons by the barbecue, door-to-door magazine sales scams are likely to appear in many consumers’ neighborhoods. These scams typically begin with a knock at the door and a young person on the other side claiming to be raising money for a charity, school trip, or other seemingly worthy cause by selling magazine subscriptions. In fact, consumers who take the bait and sign up for a subscription often report that they receive nothing in return.

Every year, young people fan out across the country, looking to make easy money from unsuspecting consumers. In Medford, Ore. last month, two young adults were arrested after they were discovered depositing into the bank over $4,500 collected from fraudulent door-to-door book and magazine subscription sales.

This couple acted as isolated perpetrators, yet several companies that annually employ young salespeople to peddle suspect magazine subscriptions have drawn hundreds of complaints about their sales tactics and product, earning them a rating of ‘F’ from the Better Business Bureau. Indeed, subscription fraud is not a rare occurrence. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) receives over 10,000 complaints each year from consumers that witness this variety of fraud. Nor is subscription fraud endemic to a particular area of the country. The Better Business Bureau has logged complaints from virtually every state in the union. Tragically, the intentions of magazine sales crews may not stop at subscription fraud. One former sales crew member interviewed by the New York Times testified that he regularly stole from his customers, including such items as “wedding rings, watches, necklaces, money, checks, shoes, clothing, glasses, [and] hats.” Unlicensed peddlers can be especially dangerous. Columbia County (Ga.) law enforcement apprehended 17 members of a sales crew, 5 of whom had criminal records involving violent crimes, in February 2011.

Given the potential for fraud anytime a salesperson rings the doorbell, consumers should take some basic precautions that can improve their safety and security. First of all, as the consumer protection blog Consumerist suggests, “there are better ways of buying magazine subscriptions and of supporting teens, charities, and troops, and there’s no reason the two worlds need to be mashed together on your front porch without warning.” Instead of handing a check to a stranger right then and there, consider asking the salesperson for more information about the charity he or she represents, and commit to making a donation online or over the phone.

Subscribing to a magazine can be achieved just as easily through the Internet or phone. For consumers who have already made a “front-porch” purchase or might consider doing so in the future, the FTC has instituted a “Cooling-off Rule” that gives consumers three business days to cancel purchases of $25 or more made at their home for a full refund. Also, under the Rule, the salesperson must convey the customer’s right to cancel at the time of sale and provide two cancellation forms along with a receipt. Any salesperson that does not explain how to cancel or provide forms to do so should automatically raise a red flag. Moreover, consumers who have made a purchase within the past three days but distrust the legitimacy of their purchase have the right to a full refund from the seller.

Government officials have attempted to stem the subscription fraud epidemic, but since the problem persists, consumers should also exercise vigilance to help root out fraud. Before making a purchase, always ask the salesperson to see a valid solicitation license and, if possible, research the company or charity with the Better Business Bureau (www.bbb.org). If the salesperson pressures you to make a decision immediately, tell him or her to come back tomorrow once you’ve done your homework. Consumers who suspect they’ve been victims of fraud should file a complaint with local law enforcement, as well as with the BBB or FTC. Newspaper and magazine publishers are also on the lookout for fraud (e.g. The Wall Street Journal and The Nation magazine) so make sure to check with them to see whether your subscription has been registered in their system. FIGHT FRAUD: Steps to take when a magazine salesperson approaches you

By Teresa Green, Linda Golodner Food Safety & Nutrition Fellow For anyone interested in the food policy, and many people who aren’t, it has been difficult to avoid discussion of the farm bill over the last few months.  This expensive and important piece of legislation has historically been passed every five years and regulates both farm and nutrition policy.

Last year, however, the farm bill was not voted on as it should have been.  Stymied by election year politics, the bill was never brought forward for a vote in the House of Representatives, despite passage in the Senate.  The result was a one year extension of the 2008 farm bill and plans to deal with the bill this year instead.  The bill did come up for a vote in the House this year as planned, however, much to the shock of many observers, it was voted down.  Struggling to reassert their leadership after this surprising defeat, Republican leaders in the House decided to reintroduce the bill with one notable difference; to ensure passage they removed the nutrition title (SNAP funding and other nutrition programs) from the bill. This change has nutrition and farm groups deeply concerned.  Since the 1970s, the farm bill has included both farm programs and nutrition programs.  It is this pairing that has facilitated an alliance between Democrats and Republicans, urban and rural constituencies, to pass this important piece of legislation year after year.  By separating the two parts of the bill, Republicans have won a short term victory—passage of a farm bill in the House—but likely face a more difficult struggle to reach agreement with a Democratically led Senate. Consumer, nutrition and farm groups are all concerned about this move.  Nutrition programs, especially SNAP (formerly food stamps), are an essential part of the social safety net, particularly in tough economic times.  These programs have been under attack in recent years, and this move only heightens concern.  Those who believe the government has a responsibility to assure its citizens can put food on the table should call their Congressmen, in both the Senate and the House, to urge them to push hard for continued nutrition spending and a final farm bill that adequately addresses hunger.

By Sam Hamer and R.J. Smith, Public Policy Interns Last week, tech giant Google released its semiannual Transparency Report, which for the first time included data about malware and security threats drawn from the company’s Safe Browsing program. The program began in 2006 as a way to identify infected sites and warn browser users who attempt to access them.

According to Google: “Our security team built Safe Browsing to identify unsafe Web sites and notify users and webmasters so they can protect themselves from harm. By providing details about the threats we detect and the warnings we show, we hope to shine some light on the state of web security and encourage safer web security practices.” As part of the Safe Browsing program, Google scans a fraction of sites in each country and utilizes the data to indicate the prevalence of sites hosting malware. A country-by-country breakdown of the prevalence of malware-infected sites shows, for instance, that approximately 2 percent of the over 14 million sites in the United States contain malware or phishing scams.

By comparison, roughly 15 percent of sites in India tested positive for malware, one of the highest rates in the world. Google’s worldwide tracker identifies as many as 90,000 unsafe Web sites per week, notifying webmasters each time fraudulent code is discovered. In addition to delivering a warning page to browser users who attempt to access these infected sites, webmasters receive a report notifying them of the corruption and instructing them to fix the problem. Google’s disclosure of malware infection data has received significant media coverage, with the New York Times, NBC News, and *CNN covering the release, in addition to a smattering of online magazines and tech blogs. Many credit Google with increasing popular awareness of “just how unsafe the Internet has become,” as the New York Times put it.

Google’s Dorothy Chou disclosed in an email that, “the coverage has been fairly neutral to positive.” But, she notes, “[it is] probably too early to know what people are doing with the data release yet.” Indeed, while Google’s collection of malware and phishing data over the past half-decade has provided greater certainty of where malicious online activity persists, just what the vanguards of online security should do with the data is less certain. As privacy blogger John Hawes notes on the blog Naked Security, webmasters can now monitor the Safe Browsing site for data about their site provider service.

If Google’s data show that a particular site provider comes up as a host for a number of infected sites, then webmasters will know that they should start asking questions, Hawes suggests. Moreover, webmasters can better inform themselves about which site providers have a clean record, and flag those providers who host numerous infected sites. If anything, the Safe Browsing program has contributed to a heightened awareness of Internet scams among the general populace. While many Internet users have heard of the words “phishing” and “malware,” Google has shed additional light on the scope of the problem. As Google engineer Niels Provos put it, “[Safe Browsing] is about making the Internet a safer environment… We want to make as much information available about the state of the Web as we see it…By putting [the data] out there, we want to educate Web masters that this is very real, that the danger of you getting infected is very large.”

*Links are no longer active as the original sources have removed the content, sometimes due to federal website changes or restructurings.