[LanceD]

Certainly privacy and security are a huge concern to everyone, and of course I feel the same way about my data.

The fact is that in most cases the data is safer on the servers than it is on a PC. For one thing, the data is being backed up twice a day, the servers are physically secured and they are protected from net attacks by a very powerful firewall. Most people are not using an industrial strength firewall and do not back up their data periodically, so they are subject to hacks, viruses and hardware failures. A windows-based PC connected directly to the internet via broadband or DSL without a firewall or updated anti-virus is essentially an open book to even the most unsophisticated hacker. They find you by running port scan programs on huge swaths of IP addresses until bingo your IP address comes up as vulnerable. I also think you would be hard pressed to find someone who hasn't lost data due to hard drive crashes or corruption.

In terms of the data itself, it is locked to an email address and encrypted password. Neither your name nor any other financial or personal data is ever stored. If you were to somehow get around all of the security and break in the data would be meaningless--without the application to decrypt the password and tie the various tables together it is just a bunch of numbers. Playing online poker is far riskier than using this application.

Of course unlike your home PC you can get to your data with any computer (Mac, PC, Linux etc) that has a web browser. You can also use your mobile phone. The FAQ on the site does a pretty good job of addressing these concerns and talking about the advantages of the anywhere/anytime/any platform combination.

Lance