Hover.com: we store & email passwords in plaintext for usability
Blaming Hover.com is shooting the messenger. The problem here is that <i>this is what customers want</i>. As long as you ask Hover to compete for business in a race to the bottom of the "convenience" barrel, you are going to have this problem. If Hover stop doing this, someone else wil come along and take Hover's business by sending plaintext passwords around in email.<p>So.<p>You either live with it and do your business with someone who has decided to offer a "premium" service and has a business model catering to educated customers,<p>Or:<p>You look for the government to regulate the marketplace as a public good. We do this with things like the safety of cars, we've decided that the marketplace cannot be left to decide this for itself. We attempt to do this with things like the content and handling of food, we've decided that the marketplace cannot be left to decide this for itself.<p>Perhaps the security of your account is not important enough to impose regulation. Perhaps it is. But as long as it's left up to the marketplace, the existence of companies like Hover is inevitable, and waggling our fingers at them is not going to do anything except make us feel smarter than the average bear.