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FTC Seeks Battle With Toysmart
wrenling writes: "Toysmart promised to never share their customer's data. They lied. They are seeking to sell their customer databases. The FTC voted today to begin a court battle with Toysmart to block them from doing so. CNN has more details in a CNNfn article."
if you dont want your information disclosed to other companys, it is illegal for a company to ignore your pleas.
for finally defending one of our rights.
I wonder what the libertarian response would have been, probably to never again patronize an out of business retailer?
Assuming that the FTC didn't enter into a court battle, couldn't we (the users) enter into a class-action lawsuit against Toysmart? I mean, getting cash cost for damages, etc., above and beyond what they were paid for the database would send out a better message, IMHO. I would think that to be a better deterrent.
"I'm not even supposed to BE here today!"
If you don't want your info given out to other companies don't give it to anyone in the first place. Anytime I submit my info I assume that it's going to be sold to other companies.
It is about time the government did its job. I am not a fan of Disney to begin with (owners of Toysmart) and this make me like them even less. Even if they had no direct influence in this, they certainly knew it was going to happen. Stick it to them FTC!
Free as in speech, free as in beer, or free as in lunch?
I actually read a similar article about this initially at news.com talking about companies doing ths all the time when they go bankrupt. Of all the hardware and everything they have (as much as an internet company CAN have) customer databases sell for the most and oft times get them out of debt the most. It's good to see a government organization standing up for the people for once.
For the attentive (like me) check news.com from Saturday, I believe, and see which OTHER companies are currently auctioning off customer databases. You may have done business with them at some point.
Excercise your rights or loose them.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
Just how binding was Toysmart's promise? Was it a "Above subject to change without notice" or was there an explicit contract between user and Toysmart?
In the former case I doubt that anything will happen, but it will be very exciting if somebody goes down because of this.
--
Eric is chisled like a Greek Godess
marotti.com
I think it should be perfectly possible, legal, and reasonable to sell the personal data -- provided that it stays with the web site. In other words, anyone taking that personal data must use it in conjunction with the URL "toysmart.com" and whatever website they put up in its place.
Well this is really a sad thing to see.
I guess it may just be the decline of the world into a corp controlled world where they do what they want when they like but at least the FTC is poping in and trying to stop it.
I really don't think they should be doing this to the customers. I mean what if they had a sudden infusion of capital and got back on their feet? How many people would do business with them NOW?
Not many I beleive. Where would you rather go a place that sells the information you give them privatly or someone who locks it in a vault and buries it in 10 feet of concrete? Well maybe that was a bad setup but my point is, that maybe they should think a little bit more on this and with any luck they may decide not to sell it. I doubt that they will but hey we can hope.
Thats about all I got to say on this....lets hope something is done...I'd hate to see this become a trend.
Shame on you Toysmart...I would have expected better from a toy company.
-Sarkdas (This is commander Sarkdas, Over and out!)
Sometimes the government does something useful. Too bad you can't vote for the head of the FTC.
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose
Did Toysmart have a specific privacy agreement of which they would now be in violation, like others mentioned on /.? It would be interesting to see how this compares to the other failed dot-coms that are selling (or trying to sell) personal info. Is the FTC investigating and considering pursuing others, and this is just the first (semi) high-profile case? Or is there something different about Toysmart that makes them a target?
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
Pretty sparse article. I wanted to know what Disney had to say, since it claims they own the site.
Don't moderate this as "off topic" just yet - allow me to get around to my point.
I am a libertarian - so don't accuse me of libertarian bashing, because that's not what this is about. And when I say "libertarian," think "political party", not "crypto-anarchist". Do that for the sake of this article, whatever you really believe.
There, now that is out of the way.
So, as a libertarian, I have a problem here.. An inner conflict, if you will. One one hand, I believe (like a good libertarian should) that there should be less government. That the government should keep its hands out of just about everything. But on the otherhand, without the government, toysmart can violate my rights. Microsoft can crush my company. And I cannot stop them.
Of course, we can talk about standing up for your beliefs, and organizing this and that, etc. etc., but right now, toysmart is all set to disclose private information trusted to them - after they said they wouldn't.. and it looks like the FTC is the only thing with enough force to stop them.
So, knowing there are a lot more involved libertarians out there, what is the answer in cases like these - where the government stands between us and toysmart, or microsoft...
What is a libertarian supposed to think about it?
wish
---
The heart of the issue here is whether or not the company promising its customers that such information will remain private is a binding and legal contract.
While IANAL, I do know that in Massachusetts there are provisions to make even oral contracts binding. Oral contracts can be difficult to prove, but can be used as a legal agreement. This is a Massachusetts based company, but it is unclear whether this type of behavior would be handled under state law. If so toysmart's efforts have a really good chance of failing. Otherwise, I can give no opinion.
While there is a question of law at hand, I am more concerned with the question of corporate ethics in web-land, especially when it comes to consumer privacy. When someone gives information to a site and specifically request that the information be kept secret, there is a good faith agreement that in exchange for the business they conduct, their wishes will be adhered to. In this case, there is no more business to be conducted. What happens to good faith when a web company goes belly-up? This could set a veeeery interesting precedent.
It just does my heart good see one of my US Government Agencies actually doing something right for its citizens instead bowing to the desires of corporations
I am already drafting my letter of support to send to the FTC. All slashdoters may also do so (though I am sure they really only care about those who are US citizens) by sending a letter to:
Federal Trade Commission
CRC-240
Washington, D.C. 20580
The last time they did this in the United States of America, it was called slavery and eventually it was outlawed; it seems that it was seen as illegal to treat people as property.
Now, people are being treated as property again, virtually if not actually. A company can cover itself by saying, "We are only selling information, not the person!" but the truth of the matter is that in our day and age, information about a person can be a valuable asset in putting that person's resources at your disposal.
Forget about blackmail--that's a naive idea. The real money lies in being able to analyze people according to their purchasing and surfing patterns, and tailoring ads to individuals that are nearly irresistable.
For more than fifty years, citizens of the United States of America have been conditioned to believe that they must buy next year's model, that they must keep up with the Joneses, that every penny that isn't being spent on keeping them alive or sheltered must be spent on buying things that mysteriously fail to increase our quality of life. We are being taught to buy junk, and then we are forced to work longer hours so we can buy more junk.
It is time to stop this nonsense. It is time to say, "No more!" Are you willing to trade your freedom for a few cheap trinkets?
www.alarmist.org
After viewing the Fucked Company website, it looks like a lot of companies will trying to do the same as Toysmart. Personal Information in the gold of the internet. Since most business plans for Internet Companies look like they were written by four-year-olds high on sugar about the only thing left after they die are the records of the fools that bought from them.
A good example of Personal Information mining are AOL owned web sites. Just take a peak at any AOL owned website and notice how many cookies are sent from AOL on a single page load (at least four) from their ads server. Why do they need 4 cookies to track one user? Plus every cookie is unique so if you say no to the cookie, it pops up again and again wanting to tag your browser. I have almost given up using their web sites because I get tired of saying no to their cookies.
This is the way to stem and break the trade in customer data.
Enforcing contract law is a vital role of the government. Without it, there's no recourse when one doesn't get what one pays for (in this case, I consider Toysmart's privacy policy to be a part of the terms of sale).
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Let's see...
The Federal Trade Commission has a cadre of crack investigators backed up by masses of professional bureaucrats.
Toysmart has warehouses full of Sooper Soakers and a legion of G.I. Joes with Kung Fu Grip[tm].
My money's on Toysmart.
k.
--
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people
are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
Furthermore, it seems entirely possible that whoever purchases the piece with the database prize piece contained therein will be bound by the same agreement Toysmart made to all it collected data from.
So you tought that coming here and buying our crap merchandise ONCE, a miserable one time in your life was enough?
Look at what you acomplished, you moron! We are out of business now, thanks to you! Why haven't you come back? Why haven't you told your wife, your husband, your neighbours, your friends to come and buy from us? Why?
Know what, we will get even with you. Yes, just wait and see. We have you by the hand. We know where you live, we know your credicard number, we know your phone number.
We will go out and sell all this to highest bidder. No, I have a better idea yet. We will sell it to MEANEST bidder.
Your phone number will go to the worst direct marketeers in the country! Your address, to every church in your area. Your children's names will go directly to alt.sex.pedophilia.children.offer.themselves. Your wife's name we have already sent to a scort's online site. And your boss will be hearing about that sex toys you bought.
You made us suffer. Now taste our revenge. Next time you will thinking twice before failing to help an honest and good online store to trive.
The article didn't make it very clear as to whether they want to sell the database of customer info, or if the database will change hands along with the rest of the company.
;).
The former seems to be a bad idea; as stated previously, even if the FTC didn't step up to the plate, they'd be facing a pretty lengthy civil fight (probably class action) against everybody who registered with them.
The latter seems much more reasonable, and is what appears to be actually happening. This is certainly acceptable, I'd think. A corporation is an entity unto itself, and would retain ownership of the database regardless of who was pulling the strings behind the scene.
But, if the latter is really going on, why was it reported in such a provocative way (i.e., "This company is going to sell your information even though it promised not to!") instead of a more direct manner ("This company is going to change hands."). Seems like rabble rousing to me.
But, what do I know?
-- if(game-theory) moderate++;
You know what scares me the most? The fact that even if they somehow stayed afloat, most of the people out there would still buy from them. Its a sad fact that there are millions of morons out there that just don't know, or care what people are doing with their private information.
All the people who use major online companies for internet access are pretty used to spam from thier provider selling thier email address. They seem to accept this as normal and something that they deal with and think nothing of it. Look at all the "click to win" type sites. Where is all the money comming from to pay the winners? Why by the selling of the full info that you have to provide them to participate.
I find it depressing that the internet has formed a new form of revenue in the selling of personall information to be abused by marketing people. Telemarketers, spamers, ect. And the very sad thing is this is being done by the companies you are purchasing items from. It isn't enough you are buying from them, they also sell your info to make even more money.
Just thinking about all the uncarring people who will continue to use any company regardless of thier actions makes me sick.
Hint: If you are logged on to AOL and reading this you might fall into the catagory I mentiond
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
So we should abandon e-commerce as a viable outlet for business growth simply because we can't trust anyone not to sell our info? I'm glad somebody is fighting this battle; if the Net is going to become a permanent marketplace we're going to need to make sure companies stick to their promises. Being an informed consumer is one thing, but being an overly paranoid consumer might equal the death of the e-conomy.
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
There is a parallel, in my view, between this and "click-through" and "shrinkwrap" licensing schemes.
From a common sense standpoint, the FTC has to win this battle. If they don't, this would not only make privacy policies essentially unenforceable, but other types of non-signature contracts as well.
If a company is able to arbitrarily go against their posted privacy policy, then consumers should be able to do the same in reverse for any other similar type of contract. IE, I should be able to click on one of Microsoft's "I Agree" buttons on one of their click-through licenses, and then feel free to go against it at a whim. They are both equally valid contracts, requiring exactly the same effort to "agree" to them (clicking on a little button on a webpage), and both employing the same tactic for proof of identity (they take your word for it).
It would be in any software company's best interests to fight on the FTC's side on this one.
At least, in theory :]
>about it?
You aren't *supposed* to think anything about it.
Go ahead... think any damn thing you please. No one'll burn you at the stake. Form an opinion for yourself, and don't wait for the libertarian gurus to form one for you. Just because you belong to a particular political party/religion/group does NOT mean you MUST adjust your entire thought processes to fit it's doctrine.
OTOH, some of those same entities *DO* beleive that everyone MUST think alike. And will go to great lengths to silence/excommunicate their critics. Which is why I will never support groups like the republican or democrat parties, the christian church, peta, cult of scientology, micro$oft, etc.
But, the last I checked, there was nothing in the libertarian philosophy that said you MUST accept, beleive in, and think in line with, EVERY aspect of the philosophy.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
National Public radio news had a long story on this on Friday.
One of the possibilities identified is that a judge might allow the sale of the very valuable data (this sort of thing goes for 15 bucks a name,) to a company that agrees to uphold the same garauntee.
The issues are complicated here, as the shareholders want some return of their investment, and this is one of the most valuable assets the company has.
It's not that they'll sell the data to such a company. It's that they'll sell all of Toysmart to such a company, thereby sweeping the customer data issue under the rug. Selling the data by themselves would be rather senseless if the receiving company isn't allowed to make use of them.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Somehow this reminds me of Xoom-we-will-never-put-ads-on-your-homepage-dot-co m, and their "They aren't ON your homepage, they are on top of it" policy.
Toysmart may have pledged to never sell your personal details but toysmarts creditors probably aren't bound by the agreement that you had with the website.
Unlike xoom.com, toysmart have little to loose. If they sell your details then the creditors will be happier and if they dont then it's no big deal really.
It's a pretty sad situation
It's incredible to see a government agency siding against big business, and with the private citizen here. It makes me wonder if maybe there is some small amount of accountability left in the US, rather than corporations being allowed to do whatever they please, whenever they please.
Or it could just be a token gesture, done to lull the masses into complacency. It's very easy for people to not look closely at what's going on around them, as long as thing can be perceived as being ok.
Cynical? Me?
"Suppose you were an idiot..... And suppose you were a member of Congress... But I repeate myself."
Jim thinks that that is a bad idea
Get your own Red Swingline Stapler
This is totally OT, but there's no "general /. bitch area" that I know about..
Can we PLEASE make it an unspoken rule that by default posters are NOT lawyers. I swear every fifth post has "IANAL, but..." It's driving me nutso! Whenever lawyers DO pop their heads up and post, they clearly indicate that they are lawyers, this isn't legal advice, etc., etc. If you don't do this then you ain't an attorney and we just assume as much.
Personally, I think all the sexually repressed geeks around here are subconsciously making up for it by throwing ANAL into as many posts as they can realisitically get away with. Freud would chuckle, that's for sure.
- Rev.Liability is just an accounting term. That makes as much sense as getting the Army to classify military weapons as liabilities so that it wouldn't fall into the wrong hands.
I'm sure that Toysmart has some debits owing. These are liablilities and yet they are not going to go out and destroy them.
Crappy moderating.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
What can we learn from this whole debacle?
1.)corporations represent stockholders who as a rule value money more than principles.
2.)Honesty only has value if it can generate goodwill or some percieved value.
3.)Take away the incentive to remain honest and the corps revert to there scummy do-anything-for-a-buck selfs.
4.)#3 especially applies to a corp that enters reorganization. A corporate mission statement looses much meaning when all your assets are getting repo'd.
But honestly, I know in principle this sucks, but, I can't help but thinking. Who cares? So they tracked all of my toy purchasing habits for the last 12 months. They have illegally sold my lego purchasing fetish information to everyone with a buck who wants to purchase it.
I just am not swept up with outrage here. Sorry!
--Pete
he felt himself being split into two haves, one part hot, one cold, one part hard, one soft, one part trembling, and one part not trembling, each half grinding against the other. -- ray bradbury
www.avacal.com -- the home page of pete shaw
So, knowing there are a lot more involved libertarians out there, what is the answer in cases like these - where the government stands between us and toysmart
Adam Smith gives three legitimate purposes of government. I'm paraphrasing here, so please forgive me any lapses.
1. To protect the people from invasion by foreign armies.
2. To protect the people from each other, or, failing that, to administer a system of justice.
3. To undertake those projects which benefit the whole people, but which will not profit any lesser group to undertake.
Milton Friedman adds a fourth, and a precautionary warning.
4. To care for those who are unable to care for themselves.
The caution is: all of these should be interpreted narrowly.
L. Opposition
I aim to misbehave.
There are a number of points to be made for the prosecution in this case. 1. we (the consumers) have already had to go to court to have the option made available to us to NOT receive solicitation as a result of the the company selling our information that we are required to give them. 2. those checkboxes are usually easy to miss and have purposely confusing wording "Deunselect this box if you don't not want to not receive messages..." 3. Even though the company is going bankrupt, they are still acting as the company by selling their database and therefore still bound to their claim to not make this information public. In regards to your point about oral contracts, I would hope that a court would find an "I Agree" button to be atleast as binding as an oral contract, simply because the act of clicking the button is a tracable, recordable event.
Planning to be moderated ± 1: Bad Pun.
... For the simple reason that Toysmart is in bankruptcy proceedings, and therefore anything that they do must be approved by a judge and given the imprimatur of the state. It's one thing for a company to reneg on an agreement. It's another thing for a judge to be holding the pooperscooper when it does.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
All very true, and I tend to agree with you. If this case is decided under Mass. law, it will almost certainly be so. I can not speak for anything federal, though, because I am not familiar with the concepts.
Friday NPR's All Things Considered show ran a story about the Toysmart mailing list debacle. You can find it here or for the bandwidth challenged here.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
No, we need to start our own FTC and bring some competition to this market long dominated by a single monopolistic player.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
As an example, I'm pretty sure that Amazon.com knows the following about me:
- My name, billing address, and shipping address(es) I've used. That's pretty obvious.
- My E-mail address.
- My credit card number. Obviously, I want to protect this. However, even though Amazon knows my credit card number, I'm reasonably sure they're not going to submit bogus charges against it. If that ever happened, I'd call my credit card company.
- My ordering history. Yeah, this is personal, but it's not like they can use this against me. Of course, if I ordered Slashdot Trolling for Dummies, I might think differently. (Besides, their history doesn't reflect the fact that I bought some books as gifts, so they seem to think I'm interested in the book Measured Drawings of Eighteenth-Century American Furniture.)
- They could have a list of books and other items I browsed, but never ordered. That doesn't necessarily reflect my interests, though, as I'm reasonably sure I won't be ordering Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
So, does Amazon.com know anything about me that I haven't told them? Or any other online retailer, for that matter? I can see that they could use my ordering history to get an idea of what my interests are, but that doesn't mean that they'll sucker me into buying every single book about Linux.If Amazon, or any other online retailer I've done business with, ever goes bankrupt and resells my customer information, I'm not entirely sure what the threat is. Sure, it's personal information and I'd really rather not have it resold, but I'd like to at least know how much of a threat this is.
There would have to be a way to link the answers to people if it is going to sell. But a free software organization could collect such information from people willing to volunteer it and sell it, using the proceeds to fund projects. And a summary of the data could be a powerful argument for the size of the free software community whether or not it is sold.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
Unless the purchaser of the Toysmart.com (name/customer database) remains bound by the same privacy and usage agreement originally agreed to by Toysmart's users, then the sale might as well be the sale of dozens of copies. The FTC is right to intervene to make certain that the original agreement is obeyed, or the data destroyed.
--
Ancient Goth: Someone who overthrew the Roman Empire.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I could go for that. The rare lawyer could say IAAL, and we could just assume that nobody else is. Perhaps an update to the /. faq would be a good idea if we went that route.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The information is beaing treated as an asset with value. Toysmart's violation of their promise could be interpreted a theft of that value. (i.e. Now I can't sell my info to the marketer, because Toysmart already sold the pirated info.) Therefore, the damages are at least as high as the sale price of the information.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
There is no conflict. Most libertarians approve of using government to oppose force and fraud. This Toysmart thingie is a form of fraud.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Do NOT give a company any more than it needs to know to sell you a product. In the case of in internet based company, they need a name, credit card number (and expiration date), and address. That is IT. If they insist on getting more information, do business with a less intrusive company.
I'm not sure where this trend started, but this business of a company not only taking your money for a product/service, but also demanding personal information for marketing purposes is outragous. If a book from Amazon costs $30.00, that is all they are getting for it, I refuse pay them more by giving them valuable marketing info that they in turn can use as currency with another company.
So don't fill in false info or get around the "Bold means required" fields of an order form, simple take your business elsewhere, and make sure to inform them why you are taking your business elsewhere. If enough people refuse to hand over personal info, they will take a hint. Unfortunatly, people have been trained by these companies to fill out surveys every time they buy something.
Finkployd
Toysmart is TRUSTe certified. Why am I not surprised?
Who do you sue in a bankrupt company, and more importantly, who pays the damages? They're already bankrupt, what do they care if another $100M is aded to their debt?
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
While it might fall under "selling personal information" I think you really meant to post over here.
Besides, why should someone be afraid to stand behind their opinions and views? If I say that Microsoft sucks then let it be known that I think Microsoft sucks. Anonymous criticism has so little impact anyway. Now saying that about the mob or an employer might have other considerations.
To get back on topic, if Toysmart is being bought out as a whole by some other company I can see them having some ground to stand on. Selling off just the database of customer information to someone would be wrong though.
Andrew Borntreger
Andrew Borntreger
Champion of cinematic disasters
I just posted the following to the Toysmart Feedback Page. Feel free to copy/paste my message - let the departing officers of this failed business know that they will not get off the hook so easily. So, you think you can quietly sell of my private information just because your incompetence lead to your failure? I will not give any private information to any web sites or businesses with known associations to the following privacy policy violators, at anytime in the future: David N. Lord Mark S. Reese John Puckett Roy Liu Sincerely, A Former Customer CC: slashdot.org
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
Sure the users could enter into a class-action lawsuit against ToysMart, but think about what happpens if you win: you become another creditor of a bankrupt company, and your info has still gotten away. What's that bought you? And where are you going to find a contingency-fee attorney to take on the battle for what will probably amount to no money? Perhaps a lawyer can comment, but as far as I know, class-action suits are only for monetary damages, and there are none to be had here. I think what you really want is injunctive relief based on breach of contract (part of the terms they're in breach of were that they would never release your personal info). I'd think a temporary restraining order would be relatively easy to get. Then the battle becomes the attempt to get a permanent injunction, which probably won't be cheap if they (in the form of their bankruptcy trustee and creditors) decide to fight it.
(emphasis mine)
--
who do not want governments help with the proviso that they can take actions on their own to correct a problem. A true libertarian would take toysmart to civil court and sue their knickers off.
Jumping to correct solutions slowly is better than jumping to incorrect solutions quickly.
Yahoo news report
But they did leave themselves an out:
Toysmart might still be able to use its customers' data to court financial suitors. Should the company be acquired and then restart operations under the same name, the FTC could technically decide that the data would not have been transferred to a third party. Steer says TRUSTe would accept such a solution.
So I guess they could sell themselves to the KGB, as long as they said on their website: "Toysmart, a division of the Federal Security Bureau, Russian Federation."
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
Recently, upon signing up for services, I always provide my right address, but actions like this will cause me to have 2 e-mail addresses, a real one and a fake one. And if a company is trying to get out a deal or something, there is going to be alot of attention missed. And if people check that they dont want to receive any of these things, do what a respectable comapny would do and honor their request, as that is a sign of a honorable company. And nowadays, consumers aren't only looking for the cheapest price, but will pay that extra dollar for a good company. But don't worry... when news like this gets out, indiviuals will shun the company that released those addresses and coany's that accepted that kind of buisness, and it will be survival of the fittest in the buisness, where the fit respect the consumer.
Several sentences stick out here: yet they still display both the TRUSTe and BBB Online buttons. So, again, we are left to wonder what is the worth of TRUSTe and BBB Online in the wake of this and Doubleclick and RealAudio &c &c &c. Does it mean anything at all? My guess is no. There there are two sentences which leave me puzzled: and So, does that mean that Disney is directing that this database be sold? If Disney can dictate that the doors be closed, aren't they the ones in charge of this sale/offer to sell? And Hmmm... Glad I never bought anything there.
I maybe only 16, but I see a ridiculous amounts of ads on TV about how not to have sex and not take drugs. Even though the message that these ads try to convey is great and meaningful, I really don't care about them half the time. However, my question is that would it really hurt the government or anyone to put up some ads about privacy on the Internet? If we are told that compulsory education is the panacea for all of society's problems, why not take the time to educate the public at large by what is still considered to be one of the greatest forms of communication: TV.
I read a comment here saying about how each name goes for about 15 bucks a pop. Perhaps it would get more customers to join in if they gave some money to the customers, cause I will put up with junk mail for money as I'm sure alot of other people would. Also, that would help them to get more people involved.
The problem with the FTC's plan is that this is a bankruptcy proceding. The very act of entering bankruptcy releases an entity from all contracts between it and other entities. For instance, it releases the entity from the requirements between it and any employees it might have, and between it and any lien-holders it might have. Damaged individuals may be able to recoup some of their losses through the bankruptcy court when the entity's assets are liquidated, but that's all.
I don't like this, but I rather suspect that the FTC is about to lose. Why should the contract between Toysmart and those customers who gave away information be any more binding than that between Toysmart and those customers who ordered merchandise which they will now never recceive?
Actually, they have nothing! It's all in their suppliers' warehouses. That's the magic of the virtual store - when it's time to liquidate, you save a heck of a lot of time.
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.