Apsona - Advice please

[dutchy]

Hi, ATM I use EasyPopulate CSV 1.2.5.7b and i find that a great add-on. But I have come across Apsona which allows the same and much much more.

I am just after some reassurance I suppose. But is using Apsona safe? If I have understood the Apsona Technical aspects correctly, the Apsona add-on connects to the ShopAdmin Servers. Does this pose a risk? Also, is my data safe? Is there anything that would allow Apsona or a security problem at Apsona to allow anyone to view/edit my database?

Thanks

[saitomedia]

Read their terms of service *line by line* and I'm sure you'll understand your rights using their product.

Although, their terms of service or any other company's will not guarantee you a hacker-safe service.

No one can guarantee you 100% security against any sort of intruders.

http://apsona.com/pages/ec/tos.html

I do use Apsona myself and am loving it!

[dutchy]

Thank you for the link!.. I never got that far on their website..

A great looking tool but I'm too fearful of my 'content' being available to anyone outside of the business. I also cringed when I read that it 'may' be sent unencrypted.

Am I being overly cautious? Most probably. And while I appreciate the wording and typical type of disclaimer, it's better for me to be safer than sorry.

Thanks

[DrByte]

You can read it on the apsona website ... but in brief, the ONLY thing the ShopAdmin tool does with the Apsona servers is load the program code to control the ShopAdmin app running on your site. ALL YOUR DATA STAYS ON YOUR SITE ONLY, and is never transmitted to Apsona nor their servers.

[dutchy]

Thanks for that Dr Byte. For me, when I read the TOS, the word 'content' (to me) suggests my website's data. There are several lines in the TOS where it mentions the transmission of 'my content' etc etc. Unless 'content' in this case is not my website data? What is 'my content'?

[apsona]

Just to clarify - our intent is to make clear that ShopAdmin merely serves as an intermediary between the shopping cart owner and their data. At the programming level, we have assiduously avoided transmitting any of the cart data to any server other than the cart's own.

The term "content" in the TOS is intended to mean the data in the shopping cart's database. Our intent is to state as clearly as possible that the cart data belongs to the cart and its owner, and Apsona personnel have no access to it. Nor do we claim any sort of rights over it.

We know very well that it is not just unethical to access the cart data without the shop owner's permission, it is also a guarantee that Apsona will fail as a business if we do so.

Perhaps we have not been super-clear about it in our TOS, and we'll try to re-word it to be a bit clearer.

As always, we welcome and appreciate your comments.

dutchy - thanks for you input. And of course many thanks to DrByte for everything.

Regards,
Apsona

[dutchy]

Hi, thank you for replying. What stands out to me, is that there is not a definition of what is meant by 'content' at the beginning of the TOS, but it is referred to several times throughout the TOS. Leaving me to assume 'content' was everything on my site, i.e. product information, sales history, customer data etc. Which brought me to query the following.

"You understand that the technical processing and transmission of the Service, including your Content, may be transfered unencrypted and involve (a) transmissions over various networks; and (b) changes to conform and adapt to technical requirements of connecting networks or devices.
"

Amongst a few other minor details.