Most people think they'll never fall for a scam. In fact, that frame of mind is precisely what con artists look for. Those who believe that they know better are often the last to raise their defenses when criminals are nearby. Yes, Virginia, people lose money online. A lot of it. They wire cash to London, they can't help investigating the one-in-a-million chance they really are related to a dead prince from Africa, and they sometimes even travel to Nigeria to find out. Just in case.

Many of the scams you read about are sensational, such as the silly "hit man" scam created by real amateurs (recipients get an e-mail that says send me all your money or I'll kill you).  And you've also seen lists that offer oddly skewed results, such as the recent FBI announcement that scammers pretending to be FBI agents are now the most prevalent Internet crime. You'd figure those numbers are a bit exaggerated because victims of FBI scams are a bit more likely to report those scams to the agency.

Fantastic stories like these only serve to convince many consumers to let their guard down even more, helping to increase the pool of marks for the professional scammers.

I know, because I hear from victims all the time.  My inbox is littered with people whose notes say,"I know I should have known better, but ...." And with that, they beg me for help restoring their ravaged bank accounts. In fact, every single victim I've ever interviewed says they had an inkling that something was wrong from the outset, but they ignored that feeling. That's why the single most important factor in avoiding fraud is this: Learn to trust the feeling in the pit of your stomach.

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Usually, I can't help restore those bank accounts. But I can help you, if your turn hasn't come up yet.  And even if you are convinced you'd never fall for any online con, someone in your circle of friends or family is vulnerable. Please forward this story to him or her.

Because I hear from so many victims all year long, I know what people really fall for. Here are the top 5 ways cyberthieves separate people from their money, based on my 12 years of writing about Net cons.

1.)   Online dating scams

Anyone out there never done anything dumb for love?  If you are raising your hand, congratulations. You may now relinquish your credentials as a human being.  The rest of you should read on.

Love-based cons are the easiest to perpetrate. Why? Because love always involves a leap of faith -- trusting something you can't see or touch. Just like Internet scams.  For years, criminals have made haunts out of dating services and lonely-hearts chat rooms.  Broken-hearted folks are rarely in their right minds, so they make easy targets.

I once knew the FBI agent in charge of investigating cyber-love scams.  He put it this way:  Men could learn a lot from con artist lovers. They send flowers and candy constantly while wooing a mark (purchased with stolen credit cards, of course).  Gifts really do put women in an agreeable state of mind, he assured me.

Some cons spend months grooming their marks, waiting until after several "I love yous" before asking for $800 to be wired to the passport office in London to help clear up a paperwork mess so he can come to America for a visit.

Yes, it all sounds ridiculous. It's not. It's so profitable that criminals actually pay monthly fees on some dating services. Generally, the more you pay for a service the fewer criminals you'll see, and free Craigslist personal ads tend to be a cesspool. But I've heard from victims who never joined a dating service but were still conned into fake love from perfectly innocent-sounding places like Facebook groups or chat rooms devoted to hobbies like stitching or horses. It all starts with a simple e-mail, perhaps enhanced by a little Facebook research ("Hey, you love the New York Islanders and the Beatles, too! Wow")

Since I've written about this scam many times, I've even heard from concerned family members who beg me to talk the deluded lover down off the cliff when he or she is about to send a bunch of money to a scammer. Usually, I fail. Love is blind; it's also really, really stubborn.

In the latest flavor of the scam, when a deluded lover actually wises up and confronts the criminal, he or she admits to the crime but then adds this twist: "Yes, at first it was just a con, but while we were talking I've really fallen in love with you."

For a whole lot more on this insidious, more-common-than-you'd-believe crime, visit romancescams.org. The group, founded by former victims, has been fighting back for nearly 10 years. They post blacklisted photos there, e-mail addresses and typical opening lines from scammers , and lots of additional helpful scam-fighting tools. If you fall in love and have any doubts, visit the site.

2.)  Fake or "rogue" anti-virus software

We've all seen the pop-ups: "Your computer is infected! Get help now!"

If you've ever clicked through such an ad (really, a hijacking), you know that the price for freedom is $20 or $30 a month.  At first, the ads were clunky and the threats idle. But now, many pop-ups are perfect replicas of windows you would see from Windows or an antivirus product. Some sites actually employ so-called ransomware, which disables your PC until you pay up or disinfect it with a strong antivirus product. That's why consumers forked over hundreds of millions of dollars to fake antivirus distributors in 2009, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

Your best bet?  Make a plan now.  This is the one scam that just about anyone can fall for.  The best protection of all is to back up your important files, so the day your computer is hacked, your digital life won't be on the line.  It's also important to have a fire extinguisher nearby.  A second PC or laptop is often your best help when disaster strikes.  Many viruses disable Internet access, so you'll need a second computer to research your infection and download disinfectant software.  Have a flash drive nearby, too, so you can move the inoculation from one computer to the other.

Meanwhile, if you aren't paying for antivirus software, at least employ one of the popular free products like AVG or Windows Defender.

3.)  Facebook impersonation

Facebook is no longer a Web site -- it's a full-fledged platform, rapidly approaching the scale of the Internet itself. Many young users spend more time on Facebook than on e-mail, and actually use Facebook as their e-mail service.  That means scammers are now crawling all over the service, since they always go where the people go.  There are hundreds of Facebook scams, such as phishing e-mails, Trojan horse infections, misleading advertisements and so on.

But the crime you should most worry about is Facebook impersonation. A criminal who hacks into your Facebook account can learn a staggering amount of information about you. Worse yet, he or she can gain trusted access to friends and family.  We've seen plenty of stories that show Facebook friends can easily be tricked into sending money in response to believable pleas for help.

For this reason, it's time to upgrade your Facebook password. Treat it like an online banking site, because it's not a stretch to say that a criminal who hacks your Facebook account is only one small step away from stealing your money ("Hello, First National Bank, I've lost my password. But my high school mascot is the Owl and my mother's maiden name is Smith. Oh, and my first girlfriend's name was Mary. Can you reset the password now?")

4.) Becoming a bot

You may not know it, but your computer might be a criminal.  Botnets -- armies of hijacked home computers that send out spam or commit other crimes -- remain the biggest headache for security professionals. The various botnets ebb and flow in size, but at any given time, tens of millions of computers on the Web are under the influence of a criminal. No one thinks it's their PC, of course, but look at the odds. If one estimate claiming 100 million infections is accurate, then about one out of every 20 computers in the world is infected.  In other words, someone in your extended family is aiding and abetting a spammer.

How can this be? Victims typically don't notice the criminal activity.  Cyberthieves can easily use your machine without leaving a trace or slowing down your PC performance. They do not deposit e-mails in your sent items folder. Instead of sending 1 million e-mails from your machine, they send one e-mail every hour from 1 million infected machines.

Any honest antivirus company will tell you that there is so much new malicious software created every day that the good guys simply can't keep up. The Web is jammed full of e-mails and Web sites that can turn your home computer into a bot. Your PC could very easily be safe today but at risk tomorrow. That's why it's so important to keep your computer's security tools up to date. But you shouldn't assume that this will keep you 100 percent safe. Avoid the Web's seedier side, and don't let the kids download illegal music or games, a main source of infections. And always keep on the lookout for strange programs, files or surprising hiccups from your machine.

5) The fakosphere

The Web is now littered with fake blogs, fake ads, fake acai berry products, fake work-at-home jobs and fake Web sites saying how great all these things are. You'll even see ads for such products on all major media Web sites, as they've become the Web's answer to late-night infomercials.

The FTC recently issued an opinion clarifying that fake testimonials on Web sites are a violation of federal law, and some of the over-the-top ads have disappeared. But the fakosphere is far from dead.

I know it's tempting to obey one rule that will make your tummy flat, make your bank account fat or make your cancer disappear.  But you can't believe everything you read online.  Never purchase a product without searching Google using this search term:  "(Product name) scam" and "(Product Name) complaint."  Then, spend three minutes familiarizing yourself with the reputation of the item you are about to buy and the price you are about to pay.  One or two complaints might say one thing, but 500 complaints should certainly scream at you that you should put that credit card back in your wallet.

Here are a few other top scam lists worth checking:

* Top 12 scams at BillShrink
* The Times (UK) top scam list
* FBI top scams list

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Dropping from an "A" grade to a "B" in a class might be a bit disappointing, but it's hardly a disaster.

Supporters of a new consumer protection agency publicly offered the same kind of mixed reaction this week when Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., finally unveiled his plans for the new regulator as part of a financial reform package.

Dodd's plan downgrades the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).  In other words, instead of the stand-alone advocate for bank account holders and borrowers approved by the House of Representatives last year, Dodd's version calls for a bureau that's part of the Federal Reserve.

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The new model had been signaled for weeks, with supporters of the concept hoping the change meant little more than a change of address. Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard bankruptcy expert who first proposed the new regulator and is widely expected to be its first chief, said that as long as the regulator enjoyed real independence, she didn't care what logo went on its letterhead.

But there has been great concern that, after a year of intense lobbying, the financial industry would manage to de-fang the new watchdog. And now there is real concern that important reforms will be managed by an agency that failed to safeguard consumers during the housing bubble.

While the legislation includes about a dozen or so hotly contested provisions -- such as the possible limiting of states' rights to enforce their financial regulations -- the war of words has centered on a debate pitting so-called "safety and soundness" protection against consumer protection. The financial industry and some regulators say that the financial strength of banks is so critical to the economy that it must be paramount in any regulation, and that consumer protection cannot be instituted independent of concerns over a bank's financial health.  Supporters of the new agency counter that consumers can't be effectively protected from mistreatment if the rules defer to the needs of banks' balance sheets. Dodd's new proposal is an attempt to balance these interests.

After spending a week searching for the devil that might be hiding in the 1,000-page legislation, most consumer advocacy groups say they can live with the new arrangement. Warren offered a tepid public approval; other agencies offered positive-sounding statements calling Dodd's bill a "good start." The Center for Responsible Lending's Michael Calhoun called the bill a "step in the right direction." The Consumer Federation of America said it "applauds" Dodd for "moving forward."

And the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group said it was satisfied that, in its current form, the new legislation creates a bureau that would "simply be in, but not under, the Fed, with a firewall against the Fed controlling its actions." The bureau would be self-funding, for example, and its head would be a presidential appointment.

But those groups also offered a long string of caveats. Chief among them: A council of regulators drawn from existing agencies would have veto power over new rules proposed by the bureau. It would take a two-thirds majority of the nine-member body to overturn them.

"We don't like the veto, even at the high standard it is currently at," said Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director the Public Interest Research Group. Any veto power given to agencies that are seen as friendly to banking interests would severely dilute the new bureau's ability to carry out its mission, he said.

What would the consumer protection agency do?

Even more worrisome, said Mierzwinksi, is the possibility that the veto power will be strengthened as the package goes through the legislative process.

"The bill is just a draft and hasn't gone through the sausage machine yet," he said. "We expect the industry ... to work to lower the standard, a lot, making it easier to trump (the new agency)."

Carmen Balber, Washington's director of Consumer Watchdog, was not as positive about the proposal as most other advocates.

"An autonomous regulator must have the authority to write rules without fear of rejection by existing regulators, whose refusal to enact consumer protection rules helped cause the financial crisis," she said. "An effective regulator must have the ability to enforce the rules that it writes or be little more than a paper tiger."

 Another more practical problem is the arrival of spring.  Congress will go on recess in a week, and the highly charged health care debate and fallout from a potential vote will chew up much of that time.  When it returns after the break, concerns about the fall election will begin to monopolize legislators and could trim their desire to pass yet another controversial reform package.

"Dodd is running out of weeks," to move the bill forward, Mierzwinski warned.   Still, he thinks that the U.S. public remains very positive about financial reforms, and that liberals in Congress might welcome the regulation debate after the expected bitter health care vote.

Of course, Dodd's bill is just another step in the long process toward creating a new agency designed to protect consumers, and the legislation remains a moving target. What really matters are the details, and the devil that might lurk in them and find their way into the final version.

"The House has passed its version of reform, but we now face a phalanx of bankers seeking to weaken this bill in the Senate," said Jon Bartholomew, spokesman for the Oregon PIRG. "Will senators vote with Main Street to improve this package or weaken it for Wall Street?"

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It took Mary Schreiber about an hour, and just a little moxie, to save $300. You can do it too.

After reading about the Red Tape Fight Pledge last month, Schreiber took a hard look at the $129-per-month cable and Internet bill that had been nagging at her, and decided it was time to do something about it.

"The Comcast bill was crazy expensive, and I have really just basic TV and Internet," said Schreiber, 58, a technical writer who lives near Denver.

Saving money has become a top priority for her since she was laid off 11 months ago.

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Her string of bad luck actually began 10 years ago, when she thought she'd found her niche as a technical writer for a high-flying telecom company named MCI WorldCom.   But by the time MCI WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers took the Fifth before Congress about accounting irregularities, Schreiber was unemployed.

Finding a job at age 50 can be a challenge, but Schreiber landed on her feet, this time with a multinational software firm named Mincom, based in Australia.  As a single woman, the $3,000 in take-home pay, along with decent benefits, provided her with a good living.

Then, the floor fell out from under her again. Last May, Mincom laid her off. Now 57, she knew her prospects were dimmer than last time. The $1,700 in monthly unemployment checks she began to receive would be considered generous by many state standards, but she still needed to learn to live on about half the income she previously had.  And she needed to find health insurance. So she started doing a series of small things to lower her monthly bills.

Still, finding a job "is a full-time job," she said, filling out applications, keeping up with government paperwork, applying for various insurance subsidies, etc.  So while she did some things to cut back on costs, others were neglected.

When she read about the Red Tape Pledge last month, she realized she had let her TV and Internet costs soak up too much of her budget for too long. So she used a technique we've talked about a lot in the Red Tape Chronicles:  She called competitors and got bids for her business.

First stop -- Qwest, which had been mailing her promotional offers for months.  A Qwest operator told her she could get Internet access for only $35 per month. Then, she called the Dish satellite TV network, which offered a comparable television package for about $30 a month.  She knew there would be extra taxes and fees, and that these were promotional offers that would expire. Still, she now had hard evidence that she was overpaying, and she had a backup plan when she began her negotiations with Comcast.

Her intention all along was simply to talk Comcast into giving her a better deal. Switching services can be a hassle -- users often need to change e-mail addresses, for example, and sometimes have to wait for installers and so on.  But Schreiber was staring at $50 or more in savings each month.  So she placed the best kind of phone call any consumer can -- the no-lose phone call.

"I told Comcast I would rather stay with them, but I had to do something. The bill was just too high," she said. Then, she rattled off the offers she had in hand.  It worked like a charm.  The operator offered her TV and Internet service for $77 per month for six months, and she accepted on the spot.

"I could have saved a little more, but really I'd rather stay where I am," she said.

Comcast spokeswoman Jenni Moyer said the firm's prices are "competitive," but added that it will work with customers on an individual basis "to make sure our customers are getting what they want."

"The key thing is we do offer a range of choices for customers so they can find thepackage and level of service that works for them," she said.

Schreiber says her job prospects still aren't good, even though she said she's willing to move for a good job.  In fact, she suspects she won't ever work again as a technical writer, because many firms have learned they can outsource technical writing tasks to low-wage overseas employees.

"Like any classic unemployed person, you have to force yourself to get up every day and go out, even if it's just to walk around the mall, as long as you don't spend any money, you have to get up and go somewhere," she said.

But she did put that Internet access to good use.  She recently learned about a program that will help pay for her to go back to school, and help pay for her health insurance.  In July 2009, Congress expanded the eligibility for Trade Adjustment Assistance, a program that helps U.S. workers whose jobs are shipped overseas.  Schreiber will start school next week with the intention of earning system administrator certification for Microsoft products.

"You just really need to spend time exploring what's available out there, but you have to put in the time," she said.

Sounds like the same challenge consumers face who want to save money and beat back hidden fees and unfair charges. There are ways to save money, they just take some time.

But unemployed or not, can you afford to pass up a chance to make $300 with one hour's work?

You too can make the Red Tape Fight pledge by joining this Facebook group, where you can discuss the progress you are making or the obstacles you are encountering with other members.

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We may never know why runaway Toyotas suddenly seem to be everywhere. The scariest possibility, however, is that faulty computers are driving some victims to their deaths with frightening randomness.  Suspicions that an elusive software glitch in computer-controlled throttles is to blame, combined with powerful images and harrowing tales, has tapped into our primal, science-fiction fueled fear of killer computers.

Whatever the ultimate cause of Toyota's troubles, the possibility of a "ghost in the machine" has consumers wondering about the wisdom of trusting their lives to computers -- machines they know are apt to hiccup and fail. Old-fashioned mechanical linkage between gas pedal and throttle somehow seems safer than the new "drive-by-wire" technology, and this new understanding of just how much of a car's activity is computer-controlled begs the question of whether we've been too fast to trade mechanical for digital.

Or perhaps the Toyota incidents are a signal that we've passed some tipping point in the relationship of man to machine? Some experts are wondering if our cars have become so automated and easy to use that drivers are now too detached, unaware of the inherent risks in motoring down a highway at 70 or 80 mph and unprepared to regain control if something goes wrong.

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Computers fail in unpredictable ways. What's worse, they seem to fix themselves unpredictably, too. Anyone who's experienced a surprise computer crash, followed by a reboot that seems to magically resolve the problem, understands this maddening element of 21st Century life. Perhaps an IT worker at your office will ask you to reproduce the problem -- but often you can't.  So your helper shrugs and smiles and slinks away, and you go back to your tasks, left to wonder when the ghost in your machine may reappear.

It's one thing to lose a document to such a ghost, but quite another to risk your life with one.

Toyota steadfastly maintains it has no ghosts. Still, millions of Americans are now aware of so-called "drive-by-wire" technology that until now they'd been blissfully ignorant of. And they are becoming aware that more by-wire technologies -- brake-by-wire, turn-by-wire, etc. -- will soon put only zeros and ones between them and a potentially deadly accident.

"We are talking about this all the time now," said Jake Fisher, senior automotive engineer for Consumer Reports.  "There is a lot of feeling that having no mechanical linkage sets up a situation where the electronics could go haywire and you couldn't control the car."

While that may be true, it's a little late for the debate. The first drive-by-wire car was introduced back in 1988, and Toyota began converting all its models to electronic throttles in 2002. The vast majority of new cars sold in the U.S. today uses drive-by-wire.  And when new federal regulations requiring a safety tool called electronic stability control kick in during 2012, all cars will employ it.

Computers as scapegoat?

Bill Visnick, senior editor at Edmunds.com, thinks that computers are right now being used as a scapegoat in the Toyota incidents.

"For people looking for an explanation, it seems like a handy one," Visnick said. "You know, 'Those darn things! Computers control everything nowadays.' People complain that technology has taken over our lives. Well, I'm not ready to go there just yet."

He thinks electronic throttles -- which perform without incident millions of times each day -- will ultimately be exonerated by investigators, but public concerns will force the auto industry to take a new look at its digital conversions.

"This will only increase the discussion about what's an appropriate level of electronic control for devices we use in our cars that are tied to our safety," he said.

Industrial design guru Donald Norman, a professor at Northwestern University, a former Apple Inc. designer  and author of "Design of Future Things," is more skeptical of the throttles and the expanded role of electronics in cars.

"Every company has software problems," said Norman.

The number of possible interactions is huge in a car with dozens of computers on board, so it's impossible for Toyota to be sure its cars are 100 percent clean of software bugs, he said.

"No professional software person ever says that. They say there are 'no known bugs' in the software," said Norman.

Furthermore, because unintended acceleration incidents are rare, finding any potential bugs is even harder.  "But just because it can't be reproduced in a lab doesn't make it any less serious," he said.

Safer in the past?

Concerns about random computer errors are justified, Fisher said, but it's important to know that mechanical linkages also fail at random intervals.

"A cable could get kinked, the springs could get stuck, the springs could break. A stuck-open throttle could happen with a mechanical failure, and did happen," he said.  Meanwhile, he noted, airplane passengers trust their lives to fly-by-wire technology every day, since commercial airliners have long since traded mechanical for digital controls.

That may be, but the idea that a crazed computer could one day send you hurtling madly down a highway at breakneck speed is enough to give one pause about new technologies.  Still, the conversion to digital will be hard to stop, or even slow. Already, designers are well on their way to creating computer-controlled automobiles that will literally drive themselves around town.

But even if electronics aren't ultimately shown to have been to blame for Toyota's surprise acceleration problem, Norman said, the publicity has brought to light a serious problem with today's heavily-digital cars: We're only half-way to our destination.

"There's nothing wrong with automation," he said. "Many automated features are very safe; you never have to think about them, like fuel injection. … The problem with automation is when it's really half-automation."

For example, he said, new features in some luxury cars offer help with staying in lane, with avoiding collisions and with maintaining a constant speed.  But none of them is fool-proof, and some might be actually make driving more dangerous by lulling drivers into a false sense of security.

 "The automation that's a problem is automation that's not quite there yet, that works fine until it doesn't work,” he said. “....These tools are not really good enough to fully protect you, but they kind of work so you start relying on them, but then they fail and you are dead."

The false sense of security is easily observed during bad weather, each time a four-wheel-drive SUV careens past you down a wet or frozen road at reckless speed.  Even though 4WD offers little help with stopping, many drivers seem to feel invincible when driving in storms.

"You see them driving without snow tires, they don't have a sense of the road surface, and when it comes time to stop, they are the first ones to spin off the road," Fisher said.

This is a slight variation of what is sometimes called the Peltzman Effect.  In the 1970s, economist Sam Peltzman claimed that car safety devices could be counterproductive because they actually encouraged reckless driving.  While some of his claims have been discredited, it's hard to argue that today's drivers aren't more detached than ever from the physical act of driving. That, in turn, can contribute to unsafe behaviors. Some cars make it possible to drive 90 mph while feeling as comfortable as sitting in a living room chair.

Ease of operation=hard to control

This detachment may be playing a role in the Toyota unintended acceleration tragedies, Fisher said.  For example, he said, drivers who pilot manual transmission cars are intimately aware of how to disengage their transmissions from the car's drive train by shifting into neutral, something they do dozens of times each day.  But many automatic transmission drivers have never once put their car's gear box into the neutral position and have trouble performing that task in life-threatening crises.

Newer luxury cars have even more automation and ease-of-use features. The car most associated with the acceleration problem, the Lexus ES350, is particularly automated, Fisher said. It boasts push-button starting and a neutral position that's out of the driver's normal operation range.

"It's a very isolating vehicle, he said. "That makes it incredibly easy to operate, but some things, like putting the car in neutral, are not obvious."

Norman disagrees with the detachment premise, and instead blames a lack of standardization in the new feature implementation.

"It's really a design issue," he said. "Every automobile has different ways of handling these things. ... We've all experienced a situation where you are in a new car and you want to blow the horn but you can't find it. It's the same with the on-off switch."

Drivers who are in mortal danger cannot be expected to find and work unfamiliar controls, he said. Industrial designers have the bad habit of building interfaces for ideal conditions, and creating designs that create unnecessary struggle in stressful situations.

"When danger happens, you can't think creatively," he said.

That's especially true if you have been conditioned to think less and less about driving, Visnick said.  Clearly, automakers are moving toward a world where cars speed up and slow down on their own, maintaining safe distances by communicating with each other.  The fact that so many drivers talk, or even text, while driving shows that many consumers would be happy to surrender control to their cars.

"They are telling you they would prefer to be doing something else," he said.

Visnick thinks the current wave of runaway car stories will ultimately be a blip on the march toward fully automated driving machines. He expects steer-by-wire to appear next (some high-end cars already have a form of electronic-steering assistance) and brake-by-wire soon after.

"I don't think anybody is going to generate evidence that the electronic throttle really is the culprit for unintended acceleration," he said.

Norman, on the other hand, expects things will get worse as we move toward completely automated cars.  Highways jammed with speed-controlled vehicles will handle traffic more efficiently -- moving cars along in synch only a few feet apart – and that will cut down on the volume of accidents, he said. But when accidents occur, they'll be much more serious, involving hundreds of cars. He compares the situation to the interconnected power grid, which is generally more reliable, but fails spectacularly when it fails because of the domino effect.

"The number of deaths per year will diminish, but when there is a crash hundreds of people will die," he predicted.  

In the meantime, automakers need to do a better job of standardizing their designs when new electronic features are implemented, he said.  Designers should do a better job of taking into account what drivers might do under intense stress, and be slow to change current standard layouts for essential items like gear boxes.  And they should design in safety features, such as "brake overrides," which instruct the car to let "let the brake win" if a driver – or a ghost -- pushes both the brake and the accelerator at the same time.

And how can Toyota restore consumers' faith in their cars, and in digitized automobiles in general?

"The best way to make people feel better is honesty," Norman said.  "When the  trouble happens you admit it, make assurances  that the problems are rare and that the world's best people are attacking it. The airline industry does this. The (National Transportation Safety Board) does thorough investigations and makes recommendations, and that reassures people. … The auto industry has to learn to do that as well."

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You don't hear the words "poodle," "tinfoil hat," and First Amendment in the same sentence often, but they are indeed linked in a classic Facebook melodrama.

Dale Blank runs a Facebook page devoted to accumulating as many fans as possible for a farcical picture of a beloved poodle named Bitsy sporting a tin hat -- perhaps a bit like the one you might mentally draw on someone who was espousing tiresome conspiracy theories.

Blank's intentionally clumsy Photoshop job, and his quest for fans, has a specific target -- Fox News broadcaster Glenn Beck.  On Feb. 8, Blank created the page with the stated intention of proving that his tin-hatted poodle could accumulate more Facebook fans than Beck, a favorite among conservative talk-show fans.

Within a week, thanks to several bumps from the blogosphere, the poodle was well on his way, claiming nearly 300,000 fans -- and enjoying logarithmic growth. Beck's page stands at about 500,000.

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(Full disclosure: both easily dwarf the Bob Sullivan fan page, which sits at a modest 3,400.  Take from that what you will).

But on Feb. 18, the Facebook police arrived and broke up the party. Blank's page wasn't removed, but it was "publish-blocked."  He could no longer post updates or solicit fans in other Facebook ways. The fan-base growth ground to a halt.

That put the tin-hatted poodle at the center of a dispute over First Amendment free speech rights and censorship. There were virtual howls that Facebook was actively siding with Glen Beck over the Poodle, that perhaps someone at Facebook was siding with the conservatives, or at least had developed a hatred for left-wing sarcasm.

In the grand tradition of the Internet, that's overstating things a bit. Facebook, as a private company, has wide latitude in its ability to take down posts and pages that it decides run afoul of its terms of service.  Even Blank said he doesn't want to raise the possibility of a conservative, subversive anti-poodle attack -- that's just the kind of knee-jerk reaction he's trying to mock.

"I'm not coming from a place where I think everything is a conspiracy," said Blank, who lives near Milwaukee.  In fact, he didn't really have his heart set on poking fun of Beck. He simply picked the most popular target, in part to demonstrate how cheap popularity is on the Internet and on Facebook.  "I'm not so much anti-Glenn Beck as I am pro rational thought."

Still, the conspiracy theories appeared.  It didn't help that Facebook initially failed to give Blank an explanation for taking away his ability to publish. Then, when an explanation finally arrived this week, its vagueness only added fuel to the fire.

"A Facebook administrator looks into each report thoroughly in order to decide the appropriate course of action. If no violation of our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities has occurred, then no warning will be sent," wrote a woman identifying herself as Marissa from Facebook's User Operations department, according to an e-mail provided by Blank. "If a violation has occurred, then a warning or more severe actions are taken. Unfortunately, for technical and security reasons, we are unable to provide details regarding the removed content. We apologize for any inconvenience."

Blank wasn't buying that.

"Technical and security reasons? That's just a cover for the real reason," he said. "I like to think it's not a political thing. When I see some of the pages out there devoted to (criticizing President Obama) that haven't been publish-blocked, you wonder a little.  But I don't want to delve into that.  I just want to know why I was blocked."

Facebook offered a generic explanation to msnbc.com in an e-mail.

"Pages are meant for entities like public figures, musical artists, businesses, and organizations so they can share information, interact with fans, and create a highly engaging presence on Facebook.  They're distinct from groups or personal profiles and designed specifically for these entities' needs to communicate, distribute content, engage fans, and capture new audiences virally through fans' recommendations to their friends," the statement said. "We restrict the publishing rights of Pages that impersonate other entities, represent generic concepts, spam users, or otherwise violate our Pages guidelines.  Unless they also violate our content policies, however, these Pages are left up so that those who are interested in seeing their updates and interacting with them can still do so. These policies are designed to ensure Facebook remains a safe, secure and trusted environment for our users."

Some might find that explanation vague as well. But before providing some helpful speculation on Facebook's actions, it seems necessary to offer some context for Blank's Poodle-vs.-Beck vote-off.  When creating the page, Blank drew on a Facebook fan-building technique that's been around at least since January.

The "bet this can get more votes than that" format has exploded in popularity in recent weeks. There's even another Facebook page that asks, "Can this dung beetle get more fans than Glenn Beck?"  But Beck is hardly the only target.  The trend appears to have taken off with a page devoted to discerning whether a picture of a pickle -- yes, the kind you eat -- could amass more fans than the Canadian band Nickelback. The pickle, with 2.6 million sign-ups, has won the battle, at least for now.

Nor are the groups limited to witty liberals or music haters. A group allowing people to vote for a picture of a steak over the animal rights group PETA has amassed hundreds of thousands of sign ups.

 To its credit, Facebook has recently taken a hard stand against the presence of hate groups on its site, and is working much more quickly to remove offensive material.  That, in some cases, includes pages which serve no purpose other than to criticize famous people or organizations. Facebook users have reacted by creating these "this can get more fans than that" as a clever end-around to counter elimination of these "hater" pages. So Blank thinks that Facebook might be putting a halt to these new pages, too.

Blank spent a lot of time reading the Facebook policy for fan pages. They require that a fan page be devoted to some kind of sincere commercial enterprise, and the creator have a real link to that enterprise.  The rules became an issue during the Olympics, when a user created a fan page devoted to the wacky Norwegian Olympic team's curling pants. Facebook temporarily shut the page down, until the creator linked to a Web site selling the pants.

Blank feels he's satisfied the requirement by purchasing the domain BobTheWonderPoodle.com, and linking to that site.

Fast growth might be the problem.

Another possible explanation, according to Blank: Facebook keeps a close eye on groups that experience overnight, logarithmic growth.  In the wake of the Haiti disaster, hundreds of groups sprang up claiming that they'd donate $1 for each new member, or offering some similar crowd-gathering incentive.  The groups enjoyed astronomical growth, but -- again, to the firm's credit -- they were quickly removed out of concern that spammers might take advantage of members, and that many of the claims were fraudulent.

"There seems to be a crackdown on anything that shows rapid growth," said Blank, a Web developer by trade. "But if they are trying to crack down on that, there is no clear policy."

Also unclear – and a question that might never be answered– just how popular could a photo of a dog wearing tin hat be?

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LifeLock spent millions spreading its CEO's Social Security Number all across America. Now the firm will spend $12 million settling claims that it engaged in deceptive advertising and failed to protect customers' personal information.

The Federal Trade Commission and 35 state attorneys general announced on Tuesday that Lifelock is changing its business model to address allegations of unfair and deceptive business practices.

"They developed a market to capitalize on consumers' fear,"  FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said at a news conference.  "They were exaggerating the service they offered to consumers. This was a fairly egregious case of deceptive advertising."

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Consumers who signed up with the service as early as 2005 -- about 1 million customers in all -- will be eligible for refunds. The fine is steep for the firm, said Leibowitz.

"We're taking all the money they had on hand," he said.

The firm remains in business, and has agreed to change its advertising practices. Leibowitz said its services do provide some protection against identity theft, but not the level it repeatedly promised consumers in its well-known advertising campaigns.

LifeLock made a name for itself by plastering CEO Todd Davis' Social Security Number across billboards and other advertising. Many of the ads suggested that LifeLock could provide absolute protection against ID theft.

In one ad, the firm said it could make consumers' personal information "useless to a criminal."

"Consumers received far less protection than they were promised," Leibowitz said.  For example, Lifelock was useless against identity theft involving existing credit cards or bank accounts, he said.

The firm also collected extensive personal information from consumers when they registered, and promised to keep that data safe. The FTC says LifeLock failed to do so. In its complaint, the FTC says the firm:

• Did not encrypt data, but stored and transmitted it in clear text.
• Failed to require employees to use hard-to-guess passwords.
• Did not install patches and critical updates.
• Did not plan for common vulnerabilities to their network, including SQL injection attacks.
• Did not install antivirus software on employee computers.
• Allowed faxes with personal information to be available in open office area.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said LifeLock engaged in "scare tactics" while advertising to state residents.  She said the firm sent letters to individual consumers implying they were at heightened risk for ID theft -- one of which was mailed to her at home.

"Don't be scared into spending your hard-earned money," she said, addressing consumers.

Lifelock has numerous imitators in the marketplace.  Madigan said her office will continue to monitor their advertising.

"Know that if you are misleading consumers, we will go after you," she said.

LifeLock CEO Todd Davis said his firm has addressed all concerns raised by the FTC and has long since abandoned many of the techniques the agency said were misleading.

"This has has no impact on current practices or products," he said. "We haven't used the (Social Security number) ad in quite some time."  He also said personal data stored by LifeLock is now carefully guarded, and that the FTC complaint refers to vulnerabilites that have been addressed.

He said he welcomed new federal regulation in the competitive field of ID theft protection, comparing the industry to the early years of automobiles.

"When cars came out there weren't speed limits," he said.  "We were told we were speeding. We understand and accept responsibility. We don't want in any way for someone to be misled."

LifeLock consumers will soon receive letters explaining how they can apply for refunds.

Madigan added that most of the services provided by paid ID theft prevention firms are available to consumers for free.  They can place fraud alerts on their credit files at the credit bureaus, and get copies of their credit reports at AnnualCreditReport.com.

Related coverage

Court: LifeLock using 'unfair business practice'

Foolproof way to prevent ID theft? Nope

Experian sues LifeLock, alleges fraud

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Technology was supposed to make our lives simpler and save us time. In many ways, it's done just the opposite. Last month, we took a look at how often our gadgets let us down, and how screen-based devices are literally rewiring our brains and robbing people of focus and social skills.  But we left one of the more obvious techno-fear topics -- information overload -- for another day.

A new study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project suggests consumers are coping with the avalanche of information they receive in unexpected and often successful ways.  So today we'll discuss both that silver lining and the gray cloud inside of it.

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Having all the world's information, and very nearly all the world's people, just a click away seems like a fantastic development for humankind. But how much is too much?

The Economist magazine recently reported that the total amount of information in the world is growing 60 percent annually, and that U.S. households digest 34 gigabytes of data per person per day.

That's not information overload; it's practically electrocution.  But the Pew study sheds some light on how U.S. consumers are dealing with the surge -- they're getting a little help from their friends.

In a new report called "Understanding the Participatory News Consumer," Pew says that one third of consumers have commented on news stories or shared them through social networking sites, half "rely on people around them to tell them when there is news they need to know," and 8 out of 10 get or share links in e-mail.

"Consumers are using social networks to filter, assess and react to the news," the report concluded.

In other words, one sure-fire way to build Web traffic is to get a social network user to yell at all their friends, "Hey. Look at that!"

"Yes, there is a lot of that going on," said Lee Rainie, who runs Pew's Internet research. "People are getting their news through recommendations in social spaces."

New participation, new loyalty

Those are just a few of the findings in the Pew study, which suggested that consumers are driving news creation and even story selection like never before.  In a moment, we're going to ask you about the ways you consume news and deal with information overload.  But first, here are more tidbits from the study.

While the changing online news user seems loyal to their friends and their recommendations, loyalty to specific online news brands is evolving differently. Only 35 percent say they have a favorite place to visit for news -- contrast that with consumers' relatively fierce loyalty toward Coke or Pepsi, Burger King or McDonald’s.

"There is some level of loyalty but it's striking that people didn't say, 'Oh yeah, all the time, I am always checking out this Web site," said Rainie "We didn't expect that. We thought people would have a favorite, even if they were just 'grazing' on news. We were betting the percentages would be reversed."

On the other hand, Web users are loyal to a small family of Web sites they trust.  The majority of online news consumers (57 percent) visit only two to five Web sites to stay updated.  Only one in 10 users said they regularly visit more than five news sites.

Rainie cautions people on comparing the loyalty numbers to other media or other consumer products. Many people prefer one news anchor to another, or prefer Coke to Pepsi. But clicking on a Web site or blog represents a different kind of choice.  Picking Coke necessarily means picking against Pepsi, and watching one network means not watching another. But on the Web, people are free to split time among multiple sources.

"You are not being disloyal if you click on a link from someone to another Web site," he said. There's no rejection involved. Online, people simply follow a click trail. "On the Web, it's more like an impulse buy."

With consumers trusting a circle of friends to keep them updated, professional journalists are becoming just another member of this intimate circle that serves as filter, Rainie said.

"A notable number of Internet users are beginning to treat news organizations, particular journalists, and other news mavens as nodes in their social networks," the report found. Fully 57 percent of U.S. adults use a social networking site, and 97 percent call themselves online news consumers.

New platforms

Pew's research makes obvious that consumers are faced with an ever-growing list of choices. Fully 26 percent of U.S. adults, 33 percent of cell phone owners and 88 percent of mobile users are what Pew calls "on the go" users, meaning they use the Web to access news on their phones, the study found.

Meanwhile, "participation" in news is nearly as popular.  Commenting on news stories -- as readers do on the Red Tape Chronicles or Newsvine -- has become almost a mainstream activity, with one in four respondents saying they'd done so. "On-the-go" news users are even more dedicated, with half saying they had engaged in personal commentary.

On the other hand, despite all the talk about Twitter (which just passed the 10 billion Tweet milestone), only 3 percent of users said they'd Tweeted about news.  Twitter updates – either from professional journalists or friends – were the least commonly used news source among the general population, the study found.  But Twitter users are an intense and devoted bunch. Nearly 100 percent are engaged in sharing news online and in other forms of participation.

Tools vs. overload

This level of active participation is not what you'd expect from a group of consumers cowering under the mountain of data headed their way every morning. This group is not disengaging because they can't keep up. In fact, the Pew study shows that people who participate in news stories are much more likely to follow that story over time, and to care about the outcome.  It's a mixed bag, Rainie said.

"Information overload is part of the story, but not the whole part," Rainie said.  "Some people are participating because they have so much choice in news and in life. Some people are probably disengaging.  But some people are more engaged. …  Some people do it because they can.  The tools (for participating) are very good now."

Meanwhile, almost half of Web users (44 percent) say they have signed up for nifty technology that lets "the news find them," Pew said.  They use an alert service, automated Web site updates, e-mail, or social networks to get headlines and stories delivered right to their screens. Slightly more than one quarter of Web users say they receive such passive news delivery at least once a day.

News snackers vs. deep divers

Clearly, some news consumers have changed their habits. Instead of spending 60 minutes reading a newspaper or 30 minutes watching a newscast, they might spend 5 minutes on a Web site or even just 60 seconds scanning headlines posted by friends on Facebook . This group is sometimes referred to as "news snackers." Rainie calls it "drive-by" headline scanning.  There's concern that this group is learning less about their world and will be less able to participate in the political process. But even here, Rainie cautions against generalizations.

"We didn't ask equivalent questions in 1976, like 'How many of you are done with the newspaper in 3 minutes,'" he said. "Obviously, some people just scanned newspaper headlines, too. Meanwhile, people who care about a subject now have a lot more opportunity to get documents, video clips, and commentary. They have the ability to dive deeply into stories, sometimes for hours."

It's far too optimistic to suggest news consumers are winning the war on information overload, but Rainie thinks the new tools have at least given them a fighting chance.

"People are learning how to arrange the information universe around them, and learning how to be on alert in an environment that has this capacity," he said.  "They are learning to open themselves up to more input from friends, and they can customize their sources to focus on subjects that matter to them.  The technology is quite robust for doing these things."

But not everyone is being taken along for the ride.  Lurking behind this debate about the new news consumers is a potential widening of the digital divide. Will consumers who don't Tweet, use Facebook, leave comments or post cell phone video fall ever further behind? While about one-third of the Internet audience is now fiercely engaged in posting news stories, arguing online or linking to video clips within sophisticated social media sites like Facebook, a host of other Americans don't have high-bandwidth access or the know-how to get involved.

"This is a long-standing concern of political scientists in general," Rainie said. "Even before the Internet there was a lot of evidence and research that people who were not deeply engaged with communication didn't take advantage of media sources, and, how would their voices be heard? ... Online news participants are still upper class and well educated."

This might leave consumers with a stark choice: participate or perish.

"People have to either be engaged, or be left out," he said.  "Many people lack the technology and the tools to take full advantage of this new environment that gives them the capacity to be more involved.  We have to make sure that there is fundamental access to the new tools for participation."

What about you? Do you feel more engaged or more overwhelmed? Are you using new tools like Twitter and Facebook as much as Pew thinks you are?  Do you like participating in debates on blogs like the Red Tape Chronicles? Have you personalized news sources? Are there other news and information tools you are craving, or that you imagine would be helpful?  What subjects would you like to hear more about?  Leave your comment here, or if you prefer, discuss on my Facebook fan page, follow me on Twitter, or Tweet about this story to your friends.

Like the song says, he should have seen it coming at him like an atom bomb.

The singer of those FreeCreditReport.com jingles might sound a bit less peppy now that the Federal Trade Commission is making the company behind the ads -- credit bureau Experian -- face the music. Heavy-handed disclosures aimed at ending years-long confusion over free credit reports will begin to appear in the ads next month. The changes are among new consumer protections enacted by Congress in the 2009 Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act.

In one disclosure viewed by msnbc.com, the top of the FreeCreditReport.com Web site was covered with a large grey block with type that read:  "You have the right to a free credit report from AnnualCreditReport.com ... the only authorized source under federal law,"  with an obvious link to the site.  Consumers who still want to sign up with FreeCreditReport.com would have to scroll down and enroll in the paid service offered by Experian.

"That's what we were aiming for," said Maneesha Mithal, an FTC attorney. "Congress wanted the disclosure to be really prominent."

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Many Web sites, including FreeCreditReport.com, claim to offer free credit reports, but do so only as a come-on for costly credit monitoring subscriptions services.

Market leader Experian, which owns the coveted FreeCreditReport.com Web address, began advertising heavily in 2003 after Congress mandated that U.S. consumers were entitled to a free copy of their credit reports every year. The FTC has been in a legal battle with the site ever since. Experian has been forced to issue refunds and pay more than $1 million in fines, but that didn't quiet the crooning of Eric Violette, the star of the FreeCreditReport.com ads.

In what might be a first in consumer protection history, the protracted FTC-Experian legal fight actually included a foray by the government agency into comedy. Last year, the FTC created a spoof ad, poking fun of the FreeCreditReport jingles while trying to warn consumers that they might end up paying for something they could get for free.

Throughout the legal wrangling, the FTC has fielded numerous complaints from consumers who thought they were getting their congressionally authorized free credit report, only to find they had been signed up for a $14.95 monthly subscriptions they didn't want. Msnbc.com has been inundated with complaints too, and has written several stories about the issue, including a 2007 piece titled "Don't fall for FreeCreditReport.com."

It's hard to imagine the new warnings not putting a dent in the confusion – and that could be bad for Experian's bottom line.

Experian does not break out its FreeCreditReport.com sales, but in advertising for the site the firm claims to have served 20 million consumers. ComScore MediaMetrix says the site is the No. 1 ranked "financial advice" Web site, with 6 million visitors each month.  Experian invested heavily in the market back in 2002, when it acquired FreeCreditReport.com for $130 million.

In anticipation that the gravy train might end, Experian has been spending about $70 million annually on FreeCreditReport.com ads, according to the New York Times.

The new disclosure law applies to any firm that claims to offer a free credit report, Mithal said. Anticipating the next round of regulatory cat-and-mouse, the rule requires the prominent disclosure to appear on every page where the words "free credit report" appear, she said.

Experian and its competitors must begin adding disclosures to their sites immediately, but the precise warning prescribed by the FTC doesn't have to appear until April 1. That's why some visitors to the FreeCreditReport.com are currently seeing much more humble disclosures, with only a single line of text -- in a small font and not hyperlinked -- atop the page. The firm said it was testing different disclosures.

 

Television ads also will have new warnings: visual and audio disclosures directing viewers to AnnualCreditReport.com.

The Web site warnings were designed by the FTC's Web design staff, Mithal said, after receiving input from industry members and consumer groups. It's unusual for a government agency to tell a company precisely what to put on its Web site, but Mithal said the FTC has at times forced firms to include new disclosures through court orders or other rule-making procedures. This new disclosure has a bit more legal heft, however, arising from a direct order by Congress.

It's taken a long time -- five years -- for the FTC to settle on a way to clear up the confusion over free credit reports. What took so long?

"We've been monitoring the marketplace for a long time," Mithal said. "We have had a lawsuit against (Experian), we've done (court) orders. But at some point Congress said this isn't working. So it's been a process."

Experian, in a statement, said it was playing by the rules and has always done so.

"Experian has been, and will continue to be, in compliance with the FTC's rules regarding the marketing of free credit reports," the firm said in a statement to msnbc.com.  "We remain committed to clearly and conspicuously disclosing to consumers that the free report we offer is not the free annual credit file disclosure provided by federal law, and plan to comply with the FTC's rules by April 1."

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