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All Things Internet™ since 1999

Oct
3

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Amazon to hammer Home Depot in Canada?

Category: Editorial Tags: , , , , , Leave a Comment

B7155D34-A340-4756-B9E1-7744963F2728.jpgI was pleased to learn this morning that Amazon.ca is now carrying building tools and supplies. Not so much because I’m a huge buyer of tools or an Amazon fan, but rather, because Canada needs this sort of competition. With Amazon continuing to expand its Canadian offerings, retailers that were only half serious about their online offerings will have to step up their game or get out of the way. Home Depot online has always been a bit of a hassle and their prices really aren’t that great. A quick comparison of their prices and service with what Amazon is offering bears that out.

For example, take the Milwaukee 18 volt Hammer Drill. Home Depot lists it at $419. Add HST and shipping, and this drill will set you back $483.97.

4C7420A2-B989-4BE1-8867-CE72BDBBB891.jpgBy contrast, Amazon is selling it at just $398 and includes free shipping. The final price tag at Amazon is just $456.75 – a tidy savings of $27.22 over Home Depot.

E725D817-40B4-4609-9955-5E63DA9B5E38.jpgHome Depot has the advantage of its retail locations that give customers the opportunity to do some hands-on shopping and comparison. However I’m certain that for many items, the savings will be enough to compel many customers to do their browsing in Home Depot’s big box stores and place their order online after they’ve made up their mind to make sure they capture the savings that Amazon is passing along.

Oct
1

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Phishing for better URLs

Category: Editorial Tags: , , , , 3 Comments

I was surprised to notice the URL that CIBC is using for their online banking – it seems like great bait for a phishing attack.

Screen Shot 2011 10 01 at 11 59 17 AM

Using a fourth-level domain www.cibconline.cibc.com instead of the simpler for, cibc.com or www.cibc.com makes it really easy for the bad guys to fool people into clicking links that look like this:

Screen Shot 2011 10 01 at 11 57 52 AM

Note that I changed the root domain in the URL from cibconline.cibc.com to cibccom.co – a fairly innocuous domain that is available for registration today, and therefore fair game for a bad guy to start using tomorrow.

It is trivial nowadays to show users friendly URLs, no matter how complicated your backend is. I’d really love to see CIBC use something like this:

Screen Shot 2011 10 01 at 12 01 01 PM

While it won’t completely solve the phishing problem, it will make their banking app a little more friendly and easier for an average user to understand the difference between a fake URL coming from a bad guy and the real one coming from their bank.