Just fine
Data godfather Choicepoint was fined $10 million last week by the FTC for inadvertently exposing personal information on 160,000 consumers. I don't say "customers", because consumers are not their friends.
This is the way to stop data breaches--fine the offending companies. Nothing else is likely to work in the long run. The FTC says that this is the biggest civil penalty that they've ever levied, which is sad. There's other cases like this out there.
There's a lot more of these data bleeding cases out there than are generally believed. They're coming out now because some states like California require public notification. Bad press is bad press, but money makes boards of directors listen.
Posted on January 30, 2006
