We Stand for Your Privacy

Hi there, I’m Tom, the President of PriveCo and BulletSafe.com. Today I wanted to take a little time to tell you about who we are as a company, what we stand for, and why we do things the way we do.

Like any company, PriveCo has all kinds of policies and practices, but there’s one in particular that has been at the forefront of our philosophy from the very beginning: protecting our customers’ privacy. This is so central to our corporate vision that it’s right there in the name of the business: PriveCo stands for “Private Company.”

The first website I started, way back in 1998, was ShopInPrivate.com. I had the idea when I realized that people were doing things on the internet that they would never do in public. As I started to see what an incredible tool for privacy and anonymity the internet could be, I suspected that the growing ‘net might provide the perfect opportunity for people to buy things that they wanted but would be too embarrassed to buy in public. Over a million orders later, it seems like I was right.

Unfortunately, the anonymity of the internet can be a bit of a double-edged sword. The same features of the internet that let you buy a sex toy or enema without fear of your neighbors finding out also allow corporations to engage in some shady business practices at your expense. Many online retailers, once they have your contact information, will use that to spam you endlessly; or worse, will sell your information to third parties who can do whatever they want with it, without your consent or knowledge. That’s just plain rude, and it’s crazy to me that anyone would treat another person like that. Imagine if you asked someone to look after your house while you’re on vacation, and you got back only to find they had invited all their friends over to steal your stuff and vandalize the place. You would never let them get away with that; you’d call the cops immediately. That’s exactly the sort of thing some online businesses do by sharing your information, but they think they can get away with this inconsiderate and inappropriate behavior because of the anonymity of the internet.

It’s not just your e-mail and physical address, either; another issue is that many online retailers tend to save your order history. If you share an Amazon Prime account with a friend or family member and use that to order something, anyone else on the account will only be a couple clicks away from seeing what you bought. Also, a lot of transactions with super-retailers like Amazon involve third-party sellers, and while they might not be seeing your credit card information, they can see who you are and what you ordered. If you ask me, this defeats the entire purpose of shopping online. With most online stores, the internet’s unique ability to let you shop privately is going completely to waste.

But PriveCo operates differently from all those other business; we neither share nor save your personal information. We don’t add your email address to any unwanted mailing lists, we don’t spam you, and we don’t share your information with anyone else. We use top-of-the-line 256-bit SSL encryption to protect your credit card information, and we don’t save order histories, so you don’t need to worry about others finding out once your order is placed. I try to live by the golden rule of treat others how you want to be treated, and I wouldn’t want anyone sharing my information without my permission - so PriveCo will never do that to any of our customers.

We live in a time when the security of one’s personal information is a bigger concern than ever for many people. A recent study revealed that 70% of U.S. adults think it’s at least somewhat likely that the government might be monitoring their calls and emails. In an era like this, I think anyone would want to do everything they could to make sure their information is as secure as possible. And I think one way to do that is to stay away big faceless mega-corporations and seedy salesmen that operate within the shadows of internet anonymity. Instead, you might want to try the company that shows our faces in dozens of videos across our websites; the company with a 1-800 number you can call to speak directly to a real person; the company that has made keeping your personal information private its #1 priority since 1998: PriveCo, the world’s most private company.

Thanks for reading. I hope you have a little better understanding now of what we’re all about, and why I think the work we do here at PriveCo is so important.