Apologies if this is in the incorrect forum, but there doesn't appear to be one specifically for the norton online accounts...
For a company that specialises in internet security, Norton appears somewhat poor at keeping customer data safe.
On Friday I purchased my first ever Norton product, so it would be safe to assume that the account using my email address would be completely empty, no? Wrong. Upon having to use the 'forgot password' feature to retrieve that password to allow me to login (Initially dismissed as me mistyping my password during signup) I discovered that some other person had used my email address to sign up.
This happens quite a lot to me, I got my email address very early when Gmail opened so it somewhat generic, however, most of the time these signup requests are thwarted using using a very simple and generally considered standard practice: sending a verification email.
It appears Norton doesn't do this, so this other person has been happily using a Norton account with my email address since April 2009 and has resulted in other products appearing in my norton account.
After contacting customer service to try and get it sorted, I'm told that these can't be removed, but don't worry, nobody can get into your account and I should just ignore the additional products in my norton.
But it isn't as simple as that...I have this guys full name, postal address and telephone number - not to mention product keys all displayed to me in my norton account. Luckily I'm a nice guy, so wont be doing anything with this information - but what if I weren't a nice guy?
This could all have been avoided if Norton had simply sent a verification email, but they didn't. By not sending one, Norton has shown an incredible lack of forethought and consideration for their customers private data - which is diabolical for an internet security company.
Now I am very happy with the software - surprisingly so (I can remember when Norton was considered computer plague) - but am I happy entrusting my personal information to a company that shows complete disregard for their customers personal data? Not at all.
I really hope that somebody with a bit more clout than your garden variety customer service rep sees this and acts on it...