Security Bugs In Ecology Fund (ecologyfund.com)

Member Name: campb3ll

Product:	ecologyfund.com
Date:	11/02/02 (116 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free "click to donate" opportunities, Free 6 Mb email account storage

Disadvantages: Severe security problems with cookies, Limited extras/resources

Wow, another great free "click to donate" website! I found Ecology Fund through Dooyoo and thought I simply had to give it a go. (I've lately become enamoured of a similar type of charity portal called Care2 and have warmed to the notion of donating money quickly and easily from the comfort of home - at no additional cost to myself.) On first impressions, Ecology Fund looked like it would be a winner - it seemed to be packed with all the "click to donate" opportunities and portal extras that I've come to expect - especially in a for-profit organisation rather than a non-profit one.

REGISTRATION

Registration is very simple; you submit your email address plus a few minor personal details including name, country and postcode. You donate 500 square acres simply for registering plus there's the opportunity to donate some extra funds to protect additional multiples of 500 by registering for various newsletters.

Once you've registered, you're able to keep tabs on your donation totals. They aren't very detailed - merely a running total of all land preserved through all your "click to donate" activities. (Other activities, such as using their search engine to donate funds to protect land, are not counted.)

CLICK TO DONATE

There are eight "click to donate" buttons on the homepage - a veritable wealth of donation opportunities. You can click on each button once per day. Each button generates funds, provided by sponsors, to protect land around the world including - to my surprise - RSPB nature reserves in Scotland.

There are also numerous other opportunities which are not, strictly speaking, "click to donate". The entire site is littered with buttons and banners asking you to register at sponsor sites or to buy products - each activity generates funds to protect a fixed amount of land. These additional activities seem to be rather tedious, although you
do feel guilty for thinking that way when your acceptance of vast quantities of junk mail could be helping to protect endangered land or nature reserves around the world.

FREE EMAIL

To protect your inbox from a daily stuffing of junk mail, you should really sign up for Ecology Fund's free email before you register or start clicking randomly on sponsors. It's provided through Everyone.net, a well-known reliable email provider. It compares well with Care2, another similar eco-portal, as it provides 6 Mb of storage as opposed to Care2's 3 Mb. Also, 50% of revenue from email account ads goes to Ecology Fund projects as opposed to Care2's 10% contribution. However, there the favourable comparison must end. Ecology Fund's email service is stuffed with advertising and account features are very basic - just the usual POP collection, address book, filters and folders. Still, if you are looking for a reliable free email account with basic features, this is surely a worthy candidate. The service is clearly undersubscribed at the moment (I was able to get my first name - which was rather surprising) and if you want a decent username, you should sign up while the best names are still available. You should keep your username short and sweet though, as the domain ending - ecologyfund.net - isn't exactly short.

OTHER RESOURCES

There are quite a few other resources available at Ecology Fund. The usual "green" news and information, plus online activism details. Unlike Care2, there are no quick and easy ways to participate in anything; Ecology Fund lists various current concerns plus addresses to write. It's a matter of opinion whether Care2's online petitions are preferrable to information on which politician/company you should be personally lambasting via snail mail ... As this is a website, I feel Ecology Fund should make better use of the internet but perhaps we are becoming armchair enthusiasts and we
should be doing things the "old" way.

There's also a twee search engine box, which hasn't really drawn my interest, and a handy sitemap, which I didn't notice until it was too late and I was hopelessly entangled in their website. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the free e-cards ... but that's understandable as there's only five, which are provided in association with AmericanGreetings.com.

CONCLUSION

Ecology Fund is backed by CharityMall.com, a for-profit organisation that donates all affiliate shopping revenue to charity. It's popularity seems to be limited (see the email, above) and it is almost wholly US focused. If this was the first charity/eco portal that I'd seen, I would probably be more impressed than I am. It does have some good intentions and it does provide a lot of free opportunities to donate to land preservation projects - throughout the world (not just America). Unfortunately, I am a big fan of Care2 which is an infinitely superior eco-portal. Care2 provides all of the resources that Ecology Fund offers, with more professionalism and more style.

I could be willing to forgive Ecology Fund a great deal of its shortcomings, as it is a charity/eco focused site, were it not for one major problem. After I madly rushed in to register with Ecology Fund and started clicking here, there and everywhere, I noticed that I couldn't find the "log out" button. After searching the homepage diligently, I proceeded to comb through the sitemap and faqs. After a considerable period of time spent fiddling with the computer and searching through all my temporary files, I discovered what the problem was: Ecology Fund operates on permenant cookies. A cookie is a file that is stored on your computer e.g. containing log in details. The only way to logout of Ecology Fund is to delete their cookie from your computer. This is an unacceptable security risk and an unacceptable way for a supp
osedly professional website to behave. Furthermore, if you are willing to continue using Ecology Fund and simply delete their cookie each time you want to logout, you must re-register each time you want to use the site again. Admittedly, all you need to do is use the same email address (this ensures that your personal "click to donate" totals are retrieved) but this is more than I'm prepared to put up with!

In conclusion, Ecology Fund could have been a wonderful way to help donate to charity and preserve endangered land but their amateurish behaviour, cookie invasion and security risks are just too much to endure. Sadly, I shall not be returning to their website again. My peace of mind is worth the hassle of donating through regular methods (e.g. post, stores, in the street) rather than saving time on the internet.


http://www.ecologyfund.com/
http://www.care2.com/

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