Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

"This is very good news for most retailers who were struggling with the previous questionnaire and PCI process," said Gartner security analyst Avivah Litan. Read more...

At least that's one of the core conclusions from a report released Thursday from technology analysis firm Gartner Inc. Read more...

The point that these vendors make is that if you don't have the data, then you've outsourced your risk. But Taylor writes that he's always lived by the principle that "you don't outsource risk" because when it comes time to file lawsuits, the merchant will still get named. Read more...

The trial with the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) commuters started Tuesday and is expected to continue for four months, said Mohammad Khan, the CEO of Vivotech, which is one of the technology vendors involved in the trial. Sprint is also a key partner in the project. Read more...

Yes, it's never a good idea to ignore E-mails from FTC attorneys. But these folk had some excellent points, most of which amounted to an agreement that the enforcement was lethargic but that Congress is to blame. Read more...

The law said such low balances are "redeemable in cash for its cash value." But Starbucks has been turning away California caffine-addicted consumers seeking such as cash paybacks because they have yet to update their POS software to make such efforts possible. Read more...

When these alerts and log files are allowed to "sit around" without being processed, the data and the lack of action become "evidence" that could be used to show negligence, in the event of a breach. Read more...

In what some eBay sellers have dubbed “eBay math,” a series of rate changes are being seen as rate hikes, according to this Forbes.com story.

“Under the old rules, for example, selling a purse at auction for $25 would have cost the seller $1.91, including 60 cents for listing the item plus eBay’s commission of $1.31,” the Forbes story said. “Under the new structure, the seller would pay $2.74, including 55 cents to list the item plus a higher commission of $2.19.”…

The laws governing direct interstate shipments from wine retailers to consumers are “confusing, arcane, inconsistent, often ignored and rarely discussed,” according to this wonderful New York Times story about Wine.com’s undercover operation to protest such laws.

“In what amounted to its own sting operation, Wine.com last summer ordered wine from several retail merchants and asked them to ship it to states where such shipments are illegal,” the story reported. “Upon receiving the wine, Wine.com then sent letters to state regulators turning in the transgressors.”…

EBay’s PayPal confirmed Monday that it is paying $169 million in cash to buy an Israeli online risk tool vendor.

The companies said that “key personnel” from Fraud Sciences Ltd.—including Yossi Barak, Fraud Sciences’ COO, and founders Shvat Shaked and Saar Wilf—will join eBay while “Gadi Maier, Fraud Sciences’ President and CEO, will provide strategic and operational support to the company during the integration period.”…

The 389-store grocery chain—employing about 59,000 in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, New York and New Jersey—has been running this trial since October at 90 of its stores in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Read more...

There are quite a few merchants who feel that the drive to PCI compliance has caused them to make some security technology choices that are contrary to their system architectures and prior planning. Others have expressed concerns that they are simply not able to process all the data they are collecting from their various auditing and logging tools, which means they are getting little value from the many thousands of dollars they have spent, other than the "PCI Compliant" seal of approval. Read more...

But Visa helped those numbers look stronger by removing from the list some 38 level 1 retailers that weren't going to make their PCI deadlines and extending their deadlines to Sept. 30, 2008.

There are only 364 Level 1 retailers, which are merchants that process more than 6 million Visa transactions a year. Visa did the same thing for the 1,011 Level 2 retailers, only there it excluded 302 merchants, who were given until Dec. 31, 2008.Read more...

One day he's in a parking lot and discovers that someone placed a huge scratch along the right side of the car. His insurance company inspects and awards him a large check to have the car completely repainted. Instead, the man uses the check to buy a new state-of-the-art audio system. The way that Chicagoan views his insurance check is how many IT leaders see PCI requirements. Read more...

But there is a huge IT frustration with those mobile devices when it comes to retail employees. It's not the fact that most new retail tech capabilities are mobile and experimental, which just begs the data breach Gods to punish managers. That's less frustrating than infuriating. Read more...

The panel included Google's head of retail, John McAteer, Borders' E-Commerce chief, Kevin Ertell, the corporate development VP at Bill Me Later, Mark Lavelle, Ursula Milan, an E-Commerce manager at the Museum of Modern Art, and the dean of the E-Commerce analytics corp, Jupiter Research's Patti Freeman Evans. Read more...

The disk, which was apparently discovered missing in October, was placed in Iron Mountain's custody by GE Money, which handles credit card data for J.C. Penney and as many as 100 other retailers. Read more...

The biggest current concern—which is also likely to be the most short-lived—is that the service is available on a relatively few number of phones in the U.S.. That concern—a shortage of supported phones—was mentioned by a Sears manager involved in the trial. Read more...

The carts, jointly crafted by Microsoft and MediaCart Holdings, use consumers' loyalty cards to grab the historic shopping data and the uploaded shopping lists and deliver data back to consumer goods manufacturers about ad performance, by comparing ads displayed with the ultimate customer purchases. That last part is easy to track because the carts assist directly with checkout. Read more...

The Wegmans Food Market chain is going to trial whether RFID-tagged prescriptions could make processing orders more accurate and fast, according to this story in RFID Journal.

But the more controversial aspect of the trial will be looking at “how the usefulness of RFID tags on individual pill bottles or blister packs could be extended beyond the point of purchase. For this application, they’re seeking partners interested in developing in-home RFID tag interrogators that consumers could use to organize their drugs and manage when and how much they should take.”…

Office Depot CIO Tim Toews isn't sure exactly where that line must be drawn, but he's confident it's moving more toward the data-sharing side, provided the consumer sees immediate, real and actionable incentives. Read more...

The USPTO has issued a patent—to be effective Jan. 29—for a method for "real-time calculations of shipping costs for items purchased online using a zip code as a destination location indicator." Read more...

Although the initial retailer for this trial wasn't identified, the company has been talking with Best Buy, the Gap, Nordstrom and Target. And for a fee ranging from $250K to 450K, they can leverage the trial to compete against online alternatives. Read more...

No, that won't work. As much I try, it's hard to pretty up a retail technology/E-Commerce panel as an exciting outing. But for a tech-biz discussion, we've got two decent offerings. On Wednesday morning (9:45-10:45 AM, at the Javits, Concurrent Hall A 1A21/22), StorefrontBacktalk will be moderating a look at The Road To Merged Channel. Read more...