[nickles]

While Verizon does use a separate authorization phrase, I've found that Condé Nast appears to store plain text passwords. I discovered this when a CSR read my password to me over the telephone to confirm it. I reported this issue to Condé Nast but never heard back, so I can only assume this is still the case.

[jeffclark]

True. If you ever want a really good laugh, check out the software and interfaces a magazine fulfillment company uses.

Fulfillment companies are the companies that magazine publishers hire to handle customer service, charge and ship magazines to you at the right time.

Problem is, when it was time to put these magazines online, magazine companies looked to fulfillment companies to handle billing and customer service for them. These fulfillment companies had worked in 30/60 day cycles and were running software that was created in 1985.

So when the Internet came knocking, they just rigged up some stuff to kinda sorta do it the same way.

Before someone writes the obligatory "someone should create some software to make digital fulfillment for old-school publishing better", you should understand that these fulfillment companies own the customer/user data.

To migrate from one fulfillment company to another, you'd have to re-collect billing information for the entire subscription file, which would require the publisher to contact Grandma Barbara and ask hero to send in another check or get on AOL to add her credit card. Which just isn't going to happen.