ebiz

I wish there was an ebusiness directory on the web, with user ratings, of all businesses in the US (car repair service, travel agents, insurance agents, lawyers...) who fit the following criteria:

  1. Privacy: clearly state (in a few sentences written by and for humans vs. a few pages written by marketing and legal) that they will not give my info to anyone else, and that I can control my marketing preferences.
  2. Passwords are one-way hashed (not two-way hashed) and never, ever emailed, and never accessible by anyone but me.
  3. Email is a normal part of business for them, not something they do only once a day or when they have time.
  4. They have an attractive, reliable, fast website.
  5. They accept payments securely over the web.
  6. They have all of my account history available to me over the web, forever (not just 90 days or a year).
  7. They have a web-based trouble ticket system, so I can login at any time to see the status of my orders or service.
  8. They let me login using my email address, instead of making me create yet another damn login name that I will forget.
  9. They let me reset my own password in case I forget it, by answering an optional challenge-response question (if I chose to set one up) and confirming a change activation email.
  10. They send and receive contracts etc by email vs. fax.
  11. Offer support/assistance by IM when appropriate.

If such a thing existed, I'd always go there first to decide where to spend my money with small businesses etc.

The directory itself should be comprehensive, free to be listed (pay to be featured), and have tools to allow a small business to add or update their own listing. And it could start out by listing all small businesses in the US, even though that are not yet e-businesses.

If you know of such a thing, please let me know.

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