FTC imposes $10M fine against ChoicePoint for data breach The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has fined ChoicePoint $10 million for a data breach that allowed identity thieves posing as legitimate businesses to steal social security numbers, credit reports, and other data from nearly 140,000 people. This is the largest fine ever levied by the FTC. ChoicePoint also has to set up a 'trust fund' for people victimized by identity thieves. From the article: 'As part of its agreement with the FTC, ChoicePoint will also have to submit to comprehensive security audits every two years for the next 20 years.'"
BusinessWeek has additional info.
Perhaps there might be hope for individual privacy after all. Let's all keep our fingers crossed.
posted by mk1gti
on Jan 26, 2006 -
22 comments
Save Disney - in a followup to a previous and informative and link-filled
MeFi post, a friend sent me a link to
savedisney.com today which has three interesting documents: Roy Disney's resignation letter, Stanley Gold's resignation letter, and a letter from Roy Disney to all cast members. There's also links to email and show support, as well as links to all sorts of related informational sites. Is this ingenius guerilla PR from upset employees, or is there something deeper here?
posted by twiggy
on Dec 11, 2003 -
21 comments
Silly listeners. Payola in radio isn't "back", it's just back in the
news.
Read how more than ever radio airplay is not determined by you, creativity, inspiration, nor musical genius, but by the big green. More reasons to try
xm?
posted by omidius
on Mar 3, 2003 -
17 comments
J.K. Galbraith shocked at scale of corporate failures. "I can only say I hadn't expected to see this problem on anything like the magnitude of the last few months – the separation of ownership from management, the monopolisation of control by irresponsible personal money-makers." Myself and
chrispy came to the same conclusion on the drive home from the resolutely un- (rather than anti-) corporate
Glastonbury Festival today. Profit is valued and rewarded by the vast majority of corporations above all else. As a consquence, people with the same values dominate executive positions, to the exclusion of those with more 'humanitarian' or longer-term outlooks. Where is the balance? Should we make hippie non-exec directors compulsory? Or should I just go back to bed and let the drugs wear off???
posted by barnsoir
on Jul 1, 2002 -
9 comments
"Women Empowering Women". This
pyramid scheme is spreading like wildfire in the UK, with huge amounts of money involved. Basically you get a lot of people to put up say £100. The more people you attract to add money to the pyramid, the better chance you have of moving up and becoming entitled to many times your initial outlay. However, no investment occurs; this is simple cashflow juggling. Someone I work with gained £12000 on it in under a month - now everyone wants in the act. But (and I've pleaded with these people) the participants don't seem to appreciate the sheer idiocy of such schemes. Their attitude is "
my husband goes to the betting shop, it's just my bit of fun". In the end, if you gain money, you're taking it
directly from another participant. This is exploitation of people (normally hard-up, heavily mortgaged parents, it seems), is
morally wrong and should be illegal -
but it isn't in the UK. Here's
a link to a BBC feature on pyramid schemes (aka trading schemes). This
really boils my piss, but it carries on because individual participants can benefit from the fraud themselves. I understand women are targeted in this case as men are more likely to get in fights when they realise they've lost large amounts of cash.
posted by boneybaloney
on May 3, 2002 -
18 comments
Media Torrent: ""I think this is one of many weird phenomena that contributes to a national attention deficit disorder."The crawl -- that stream of info-morsels and promotional hooks that seemed so urgent right after Sept. 11, but now seems so annoying and distracting -- seems to carry Gitlin's point with it as it creeps across the screen."
Is this a real problem, or is it just the old guys not hip to the kids' video world? (via
i want media)
posted by owillis
on Apr 1, 2002 -
22 comments
100 Dumbest Moments in dotcom land a particular favourite being.. "Candice Carpenter tells Fast Company in Feb 98, 'There isn't an Internet company in the world that's going to fail because of mistakes -- Internet companies make thousands of mistakes every week" .... quite :) (via
lesser-evil)
posted by zeoslap
on Mar 18, 2002 -
15 comments
The most sensible take I've seen on Enron and Bush.
Once all the fuss has died down—Congress is currently planning ten separate inquiries—two good things will probably have come out of the Enron mess. Companies will no longer be allowed to use their pension programs to treat their employees as an especially loyal and malleable class of shareholder; instead, pension funds will have to be diversified. And accounting firms will no longer be allowed to act as paid consultants to the companies they audit, as Arthur Andersen did with Enron. New Yorker link, no registration required.
posted by jfuller
on Jan 23, 2002 -
9 comments
What is the future of online news. Will subscription eventually win through? Is there a viable business model that will allow independent publishers (such as Salon) to survive, or will we see further media consolidation? Where does blogging fit into this spectrum?
posted by RobertLoch
on Dec 19, 2001 -
9 comments
Your tax dollars at work? Apparently the
FAA is paying $50 a click to make sure that Americans are well informed passengers. What ever happened to Public Service Announcements? Anyone want to buy a $200 screwdriver?
posted by shoepal
on Dec 18, 2001 -
11 comments
Kali.net (once one of the world's largest Internet gaming networks) is created. Makes money. BeTech buys Kali to impress investors. BeTech stops paying for upkeep. ISPs get peeved. No more Kali.
Or is there? Is this a funeral or a phoenix? And is there anything else on the 'Net about this? I'm coming up with bupkus.
posted by ZachsMind
on Dec 9, 2001 -
1 comment
The Age: The perils and joys of fleadom (where flea=independent businessperson).
"Sadly, Handy says, a world of fleas and small organisations has led to a more selfish society ... 'What we need particularly is somewhere for the unhappy fleas to belong to.'"
So, for all those people who will be unsuccessful in business, and join the have-nots instead of the haves... what could they possibly belong to that would make things allright?
posted by kv
on Nov 26, 2001 -
4 comments
Scient and iXL Merge ...and I'm wondering who thinks this is a really good idea. A big part of the problem these "iBusiness" consultancies have is that they're too big. Remember all those layoffs? It's in large part because of big overhead, which is a big problem in a tight market. So what problem is being solved by making these two companies into one bigger company?
posted by peterme
on Jul 31, 2001 -
14 comments
This is truly awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome.
Just the best use of flash, collaborative model/data building and use of interactive interface to explain a complex issue... i.e. the interconnections of money, influence and power in boardrooms of the global economy.
Conceived designed and built by Josh ON and the FutureFarmers
I think it's going to move to a more permanent and snappier URL once it's fully ready for prime-time... I hope Josh and the gang don't mind me posting it here... but it's just too good not too... It genuinely deserves a lot of praise and attention, IMHO.
posted by blackbeltjones
on Jul 19, 2001 -
24 comments
"At some point Yahoo! will shift emphasis towards a billing relationship, that is as good as fact. What they need to decide, however, is whether to lead with a subscription or ISP model."
posted by grambo
on Jun 28, 2001 -
14 comments
¿Headed south anytime soon? This fun, if somewhat depressing, little site is the work of the
South to the Future gang. These wicked, evil folks have taken it upon themselves to try and
educate the masses here in the SF bay area. What troubles me is despite the pervasive nature of the dang ol'
Innernet on our everyday lives, I don't see a lot of people buying into causes of this nature. Maybe I am just jaded and exhausted from dodging SUVs all over town. I mean, there are a lot of hills in SF so why shouldn't people have monster 4X4s? On a lighter note, this seems to be a neat little side
project of theirs.....
posted by donkeysuck
on Apr 20, 2001 -
14 comments
I think they got a bargain. A company which was in financial trouble let a kid come in for two weeks as an intern. He took a look at their business, immediately set up a web site for them to sell their product, and they promptly received an order for 70,000 pounds through that web site. It appears it will save their company.
posted by Steven Den Beste
on Dec 28, 2000 -
5 comments
This confirms suspicions I've had about "Mr. America Inc." The line between government and the corporate/entertainment-whatever blurs further. Is this a new kind of coup? What lines are being drawn (or erased) here?
posted by aflakete
on Dec 26, 2000 -
10 comments
One Year After Seattle -- "A year has passed since the World Trade Organization's "Millennium Round" collapsed under clouds of tear gas in Seattle," writes
Mark Weisbrot, in this useful overview of what was -- and is -- at stake. "The debate over globalization has been altered, perhaps permanently, to include some of the concerns of civil society: poverty and inequality, economic instability, and the environmental costs of globalization...."
posted by johnb
on Nov 30, 2000 -
30 comments
Ninga? Nintendo and Sega to form joint company. With Sony and M$ to contend with, it doesn't come as much of a surprise.
posted by john
on Oct 30, 2000 -
28 comments
Is the Revolution really over? According to Wired it is, “…one day, the digital revolution was over. The big media companies wrested control of the Internet from the kids in the horned-rimmed glasses.”
Derek has his comments on this but to add my own, nothing new and exciting happens anymore.
The Internet has become synonymous for pink slips, mergers, and legal battles.
I know there was a previous link to this article but I was inspired by Derek to bring a different matter to the table.
posted by Brilliantcrank
on Oct 24, 2000 -
11 comments
Napster for sale -- potential buyers include "a Western telecommunications giant and a brand-name 'pure' Internet service provider."
posted by johnb
on Oct 5, 2000 -
9 comments
A dose of reality. I apologize for the content of this URL, but this is just too funny not to post. Finally, the world gets a dose of reality that .com != good company.
posted by fusinski
on Jun 26, 2000 -
5 comments
