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Personal finance startup BillGuard has raised $10 million in second-round financing, and it's using it to expand its service that helps protect accounts from fraudulent activity, the company said Tuesday. BillGuard protects users by registering their credit and debit cards and keeping an eye out for questionable and fraudulent charges. The company uses a crowdsourced approach to identifying unauthorized charges, by not only providing its own detection but also incorporating users' billing complaints to track and analyze payments. BillGuard's big second round of funding comes from a powerhouse group, including Khosla Ventures, Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors and Peter Thiel's Founders Fund. "At Khosla Ventures we love entrepreneurs who dare to tackle large problems with disruptive, bottom-up methods," said Vinod Khosla, founding partner of Khosla Ventures, in a statement. At present, BillGuard is free to use for anyone who wants to sign up. So how is it going to make money? The company is talking to large banks that could act as partners and incorporate BillGuard on a per-customer basis for a small fee. BillGuard is also exploring the idea of a merchant certification program that would let merchants have access to some its data, and follow up with customers who end up with fraudulent or questionable charges. New York-based BillGuard previously raised $3 million in its first round of funding from Bessemer Venture Partners and IA Ventures. Bill

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Personal finance startup BillGuard has raised $10 million in second-round financing, and it's using it to expand its service that helps protect accounts from fraudulent activity, the company said Tuesday. BillGuard protects users by registering their credit and debit cards and keeping an eye out for questionable and fraudulent charges. The company uses a crowdsourced approach to identifying unauthorized charges, by not only providing its own detection but also incorporating users' billing complaints to track and analyze payments. BillGuard's big second round of funding comes from a powerhouse group, including Khosla Ventures, Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors and Peter Thiel's Founders Fund. "At Khosla Ventures we love entrepreneurs who dare to tackle large problems with disruptive, bottom-up methods," said Vinod Khosla, founding partner of Khosla Ventures, in a statement. At present, BillGuard is free to use for anyone who wants to sign up. So how is it going to make money? The company is talking to large banks that could act as partners and incorporate BillGuard on a per-customer basis for a small fee. BillGuard is also exploring the idea of a merchant certification program that would let merchants have access to some its data, and follow up with customers who end up with fraudulent or questionable charges. New York-based BillGuard previously raised $3 million in its first round of funding from Bessemer Venture Partners and IA Ventures. BillGuard made its public debut on stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in May 2011

http://amazongoldnico.livejournal.com/.../1355.html Personal finance startup BillGuard has raised $10 million in second-round financing, and it's using it to expand its service that helps protect accounts from fraudulent activity, the company said Tuesday. BillGuard protects users by registering their credit and debit cards and keeping an eye out for questionable and fraudulent charges.

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Record prices push new speculators into mining business Simeon TegelGlobal Post PUERTO MALDONADO, Peru - Record gold prices are claiming an unlikely victim: the lush, spectacularly biodiverse rainforests of the Peruvian Amazon. Since the global economy fell off the edge of a cliff in 2008, sending investors scrambling to put their money into the ultimate safe haven, gold, thousands of illegal miners have flooded into the Madre de Dios region of central Peru. Now they are ravaging its pristine tropical rainforests and river systems, including some of Peru's most important nature reserves, using primitive mining techniques to churn through vast quantities of the region's rich, sandy soils, sparkling with specks of the precious metal. As the do so, they poison the water table with mercury and carve out vast, toxic holes in the virgin jungle. "It is a disaster zone," says Jorge Herrera, director of the southern Amazon program for the Peruvian branch of the World Wildlife Fund. "The environmental cost is extremely high. That is partly due to the techniques used, but also to the irreplaceable biodiversity that this region harbors." Since the global financial crisis in 2008, investor capital has fled to a standard haven: gold. Prices for the yellow metal reached record highs this year, raising the incentive to get the gold out of the ground. Impoverished people in rural areas became artisanal miners. Companies sprang up with new machinery, and governments tapped in, too. In Latin America, everyone is finding a way to get in on the scramble. Estimates of the number of miners in Madre de Dios range between 40,000 and 50,000. According to the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law, which is known by its Spanish initials, SPDA, just 3 percent of them are legal, working formal concessions with environmental permits and approved equipment. These miners produce roughly one fifth of Peru's annual total of 175 metric tons of gold. They are also responsible

Since the global economy fell off the edge of a cliff in 2008, sending investors scrambling to put their money into the ultimate safe haven, gold, thousands of illegal miners have flooded into the Madre de Dios region of central Peru. Now they are ravaging its pristine tropical rainforests and river systems, including some of Peru's most important nature reserves, using primitive mining techniques to churn through vast quantities of the region's rich, sandy soils, sparkling with specks of the precious metal. As the do so, they poison the water table with mercury and carve out vast, toxic holes in the virgin jungle. "It is a disaster zone," says Jorge Herrera, director of the southern Amazon program for the Peruvian branch of the World Wildlife Fund. "The environmental cost is extremely high. That is partly due to the techniques used, but also to the irreplaceable biodiversity that this region harbors." Since the global financial crisis in 2008, investor capital has fled to a standard haven: gold. Prices for the yellow metal reached record highs this year, raising the incentive to get the gold out of the ground. Impoverished people in rural areas became artisanal miners. Companies sprang up with new machinery, and governments tapped in, too. In Latin America, everyone is finding a way to get in on the scramble. Estimates of the number of miners in Madre de Dios range between 40,000 and 50,000. According to the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law, which is known by its Spanish initials, SPDA, just 3 percent of them are legal, working formal concessions with environmental permits and approved equipment. These miners produce roughly one fifth of Peru's annual total of 175 metric tons of gold. They are also responsible for destroying more than 70 square miles of tropical rainforest since the gold rush began, and dumping an estimated 35 metric tons a year of mercury into Madre de Dios's streams, rivers and jungle, according to envir

Since the global financial crisis in 2008, investor capital has fled to a standard haven: gold. Prices for the yellow metal reached record highs this year, raising the incentive to get the gold out of the ground. Impoverished people in rural areas became artisanal miners. Companies sprang up with new machinery, and governments tapped in, too. In Latin America, everyone is finding a way to get in on the scramble. Estimates of the number of miners in Madre de Dios range between 40,000 and 50,000. According to the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law, which is known by its Spanish initials, SPDA, just 3 percent of them are legal, working formal concessions with environmental permits and approved equipment. These miners produce roughly one fifth of Peru's annual total of 175 metric tons of gold. They are also responsible for destroying more than 70 square miles of tropical rainforest since the gold rush began, and dumping an estimated 35 metric tons a year of mercury into Madre de Dios's streams, rivers and jungle, according to environmentalists. Many live in sprawling, dangerous camps deep in the Amazon, beyond the reach of the law, where guns, cheap liquor and brothels packed with teenage prostitutes proliferate. "This issue is now too big for the regional government," says Herrera. "Either the national government tackles this problem, or it is effectively handing Madre de Dios over to the criminal gangs, with everything that implies, not just for the environment but for public safety and the rule of law." Government crackdowns, including several major operations in 2011 involving police, the army, navy and air force, to seize and destroy the miners' equipment, including dredges that plunder riverbeds and disrupt the rainforest's delicate ecological balance, have not stopped the problem. That is partly a question of economics. The government charges a paltry sum for mining concessions - between $0.50 and $1 per hectare per year - compared

Amazon Deals about 4 hours ago Record prices push new speculators into mining business Simeon TegelGlobal Post PUERTO MALDONADO, Peru - Record gold prices are claiming an unlikely victim: the lush, spectacularly biodiverse rainforests of the Peruvian Amazon. Since the global economy fell off the edge of a cliff in 2008, sending investors scrambling to put their money into the ultimate safe haven, gold, thousands of illegal miners have flooded into the Madre de Dios region of central Peru. Now they are ravaging its pristine tropical rainforests and river systems, including some of Peru's most important nature reserves, using primitive mining techniques to churn through vast quantities of the region's rich, sandy soils, sparkling with specks of the precious metal. As the do so, they poison the water table with mercury and carve out vast, toxic holes in the virgin jungle. "It is a disaster zone," says Jorge Herrera, director of the southern Amazon program for the Peruvian branch of the World Wildlife Fund. "The environmental cost is extremely high. That is partly due to the techniques used, but also to the irreplaceable biodiversity that this region harbors." Since the global financial crisis in 2008, investor capital has fled to a standard haven: gold. Prices for the yellow metal reached record highs this year, raising the incentive to get the gold out of the ground. Impoverished people in rural areas became artisanal miners. Companies sprang up with new machinery, and governments tapped in, too. In Latin America, everyone is finding a way to get in on the scramble. Estimates of the number of miners in Madre de Dios range between 40,000 and 50,000. According to the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law, which is known by its Spanish initials, SPDA, just 3 percent of them are legal, working formal concessions with environmental permits and approved equipment. These miners produce roughly one fifth of Peru's annual total of 175 metric tons of gold

PUERTO MALDONADO, Peru - Record gold prices are claiming an unlikely victim: the lush, spectacularly biodiverse rainforests of the Peruvian Amazon. Since the global economy fell off the edge of a cliff in 2008, sending investors scrambling to put their money into the ultimate safe haven, gold, thousands of illegal miners have flooded into the Madre de Dios region of central Peru. Now they are ravaging its pristine tropical rainforests and river systems, including some of Peru's most important nature reserves, using primitive mining techniques to churn through vast quantities of the region's rich, sandy soils, sparkling with specks of the precious metal. As the do so, they poison the water table with mercury and carve out vast, toxic holes in the virgin jungle. "It is a disaster zone," says Jorge Herrera, director of the southern Amazon program for the Peruvian branch of the World Wildlife Fund. "The environmental cost is extremely high. That is partly due to the techniques used, but also to the irreplaceable biodiversity that this region harbors." Since the global financial crisis in 2008, investor capital has fled to a standard haven: gold. Prices for the yellow metal reached record highs this year, raising the incentive to get the gold out of the ground. Impoverished people in rural areas became artisanal miners. Companies sprang up with new machinery, and governments tapped in, too. In Latin America, everyone is finding a way to get in on the scramble. Estimates of the number of miners in Madre de Dios range between 40,000 and 50,000. According to the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law, which is known by its Spanish initials, SPDA, just 3 percent of them are legal, working formal concessions with environmental permits and approved equipment. These miners produce roughly one fifth of Peru's annual total of 175 metric tons of gold. They are also responsible for destroying more than 70 square miles of tropical rainforest s

Record prices push new speculators into mining business Simeon TegelGlobal Post PUERTO MALDONADO, Peru - Record gold prices are claiming an unlikely victim: the lush, spectacularly biodiverse rainforests of the Peruvian Amazon. Since the global economy fell off the edge of a cliff in 2008, sending investors scrambling to put their money into the ultimate safe haven, gold, thousands of illegal miners have flooded into the Madre de Dios region of central Peru. Now they are ravaging its pristine tropical rainforests and river systems, including some of Peru's most important nature reserves, using primitive mining techniques to churn through vast quantities of the region's rich, sandy soils, sparkling with specks of the precious metal. As the do so, they poison the water table with mercury and carve out vast, toxic holes in the virgin jungle. "It is a disaster zone," says Jorge Herrera, director of the southern Amazon program for the Peruvian branch of the World Wildlife Fund. "The environmental cost is extremely high. That is partly due to the techniques used, but also to the irreplaceable biodiversity that this region harbors." Since the global financial crisis in 2008, investor capital has fled to a standard haven: gold. Prices for the yellow metal reached record highs this year, raising the incentive to get the gold out of the ground. Impoverished people in rural areas became artisanal miners. Companies sprang up with new machinery, and governments tapped in, too. In Latin America, everyone is finding a way to get in on the scramble. Estimates of the number of miners in Madre de Dios range between 40,000 and 50,000. According to the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law, which is known by its Spanish initials, SPDA, just 3 percent of them are legal, working formal concessions with environmental permits and approved equipment. These miners produce roughly one fifth of Peru's annual total of 175 metric tons of gold. They are also responsible

Record prices push new speculators into mining business Simeon TegelGlobal Post PUERTO MALDONADO, Peru - Record gold prices are claiming an unlikely victim: the lush, spectacularly biodiverse rainforests of the Peruvian Amazon. Since the global economy fell off the edge of a cliff in 2008, sending investors scrambling to put their money into the ultimate safe haven, gold, thousands of illegal miners have flooded into the Madre de Dios region of central Peru. Now they are ravaging its pristine tropical rainforests and river systems, including some of Peru's most important nature reserves, using primitive mining techniques to churn through vast quantities of the region's rich, sandy soils, sparkling with specks of the precious metal. As the do so, they poison the water table with mercury and carve out vast, toxic holes in the virgin jungle. "It is a disaster zone," says Jorge Herrera, director of the southern Amazon program for the Peruvian branch of the World Wildlife Fund. "The environmental cost is extremely high. That is partly due to the techniques used, but also to the irreplaceable biodiversity that this region harbors." Since the global financial crisis in 2008, investor capital has fled to a standard haven: gold. Prices for the yellow metal reached record highs this year, raising the incentive to get the gold out of the ground. Impoverished people in rural areas became artisanal miners. Companies sprang up with new machinery, and governments tapped in, too. In Latin America, everyone is finding a way to get in on the scramble. Estimates of the number of miners in Madre de Dios range between 40,000 and 50,000. According to the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law, which is known by its Spanish initials, SPDA, just 3 percent of them are legal, working formal concessions with environmental permits and approved equipment. These miners produce roughly one fifth of Peru's annual total of 175 metric tons of gold. They are also responsible for destr

Record prices push new speculators into mining business Simeon TegelGlobal Post PUERTO MALDONADO, Peru - Record gold prices are claiming an unlikely victim: the lush, spectacularly biodiverse rainforests of the Peruvian Amazon. Since the global economy fell off the edge of a cliff in 2008, sending investors scrambling to put their money into the ultimate safe haven, gold, thousands of illegal miners have flooded into the Madre de Dios region of central Peru. Now they are ravaging its pristine tropical rainforests and river systems, including some of Peru's most important nature reserves, using primitive mining techniques to churn through vast quantities of the region's rich, sandy soils, sparkling with specks of the precious metal. As the do so, they poison the water table with mercury and carve out vast, toxic holes in the virgin jungle. "It is a disaster zone," says Jorge Herrera, director of the southern Amazon program for the Peruvian branch of the World Wildlife Fund. "The environmental cost is extremely high. That is partly due to the techniques used, but also to the irreplaceable biodiversity that this region harbors." Since the global financial crisis in 2008, investor capital has fled to a standard haven: gold. Prices for the yellow metal reached record highs this year, raising the incentive to get the gold out of the ground. Impoverished people in rural areas became artisanal miners. Companies sprang up with new machinery, and governments tapped in, too. In Latin America, everyone is finding a way to get in on the scramble. Estimates of the number of miners in Madre de Dios range between 40,000 and 50,000. According to the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law, which is known by its Spanish initials, SPDA, just 3 percent of them are legal, working formal concessions with environmental permits and approved equipment. These miners produce roughly one fifth of Peru's annual total of 175 metric tons of gold. They are also responsible

PUERTO MALDONADO, Peru - Record gold prices are claiming an unlikely victim: the lush, spectacularly biodiverse rainforests of the Peruvian Amazon. Since the global economy fell off the edge of a cliff in 2008, sending investors scrambling to put their money into the ultimate safe haven, gold, thousands of illegal miners have flooded into the Madre de Dios region of central Peru. Now they are ravaging its pristine tropical rainforests and river systems, including some of Peru's most important nature reserves, using primitive mining techniques to churn through vast quantities of the region's rich, sandy soils, sparkling with specks of the precious metal. As the do so, they poison the water table with mercury and carve out vast, toxic holes in the virgin jungle. "It is a disaster zone," says Jorge Herrera, director of the southern Amazon program for the Peruvian branch of the World Wildlife Fund. "The environmental cost is extremely high. That is partly due to the techniques used, but also to the irreplaceable biodiversity that this region harbors." Since the global financial crisis in 2008, investor capital has fled to a standard haven: gold. Prices for the yellow metal reached record highs this year, raising the incentive to get the gold out of the ground. Impoverished people in rural areas became artisanal miners. Companies sprang up with new machinery, and governments tapped in, too. In Latin America, everyone is finding a way to get in on the scramble. Estimates of the number of miners in Madre de Dios range between 40,000 and 50,000. According to the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law, which is known by its Spanish initials, SPDA, just 3 percent of them are legal, working formal concessions with environmental permits and approved equipment. These miners produce roughly one fifth of Peru's annual total of 175 metric tons of gold. They are also responsible for destroying more than 70 square miles of tropical rainforest s