My trust in the Better Business Bureau® just got shattered. I always thought of it as a useful and trustworthy institution. Here is why I don’t think of them highly anymore.

I was researching good practices in privacy policies for websites and came across a terrific page by BBBOnline.org How to craft your privacy policy. It is really well written and I found it very helpful. So I decided to learn more about their BBBOnline Seal program. So far so good.

It hit me in the face, when I did click on the little “Apply now” button at the bottom of the page. The SSL certificate of this terrific site is expired over a month ago.

An expired SSL certificate is more than a glitch, especially expired five and a half weeks. The very company that tries to dispense trust on the Internet can’t manage its trust certificate for a secure transaction? Shame on the webmaster of bbbonline.org and shame on the business leaders that have no control mechanism to detect such a vital issue.