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Egghead Customer? Your Data Goes To Fry's

Posted by timothy on from the fry'd-eggheads dept.

An anonymous reader says: "I bought some things from onsale.com, which then became egghead.com. Somewhere in that time, their credit card database got jacked, for which they sent me a nice e-mail saying everything was ok. Now I've got a mail that I don't like at all, with the subject 'IMPORTANT MESSAGE REGARDING THE TRANSFER OF YOUR CUSTOMER INFORMATION.' Well. that's pretty much it. egghead.com info will go to Fry's Electronics, unless the customer explicitly requests that it not. How often does it happen that when a company goes under that they just sell their customer info and just not tell anyone?" Here are links to the Egghead info page and privacy and security policy.

5 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. Not Too Long Ago... by Whyte+Wolf · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There was a similar case where the company went into recievership and the reciever sold off client information as an asset of the company. I can't remember the details, but it was a real big stink here on /. and elsewhere.

    In this day and age of information though, information is an asset. Yours and likely an asset of any company you provide it to. Remember, you're not being made to give out your personal info, you're providing it in exchange (along with money sometimes) for a service.

    --

    Beware the Whyte Wolf.

    With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels...

  2. No way things can change... by Nawak · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...since privacy helps terrorists.

    --
    A.D. 1517: Martin Luther nails his 95 Theses to the church door and is promptly moderated down to (-1, Flamebait).
  3. What conditions were on the transfer of info? by ??? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The personal information was exchanged, with money for goods and/or services, with the condition that it may be used only by egghead.com, and that they may not sell it. It may be considered an asset, but it is an asset with encumbrances on its use and resale.

  4. Re:This is why I don't buy stuff on-line. by hattig · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The sad thing is, companies store CC information openly on servers (whether in a DB or in a file). They claim a secure site, but they are lying (misleading the consumer - an illegal activity in most countries I believe) because the whole process (customer to delivery) is not secure, only the customer to website part is.

    Sadly, even simple, 10 minute code jobs like PGP encrypting the customer's payment details before storing them on the server are beyond most online sites. And that is very sad. My company PGP encrypts all online payments before saving them on the server, and they are only decrypted on a computer that is not connected to the Internet (even though this is not as easy as getting an email with all the details in plain text (which other sites do after the https part of the deal anyway!)). After processing, the details are deleted.

    SPAM has got much worse this year. Last year I got very few, this year I also get 10 or so a day on my personal email account, despite always having it spam-proofed one way or another. Action needs to be taken against spammers.

    Anyway, the companies T&Cs will give them the right to sell on the information you provide if they so desire.

  5. Re:Is Fry's even online? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I could be wrong, and this could already be posted... but

    Yes, Fry's has a web site (frys.com) but no online store. They bought up outpost.com and egghead.com. It seems logical that now they have an online store. Why reinvent the wheel when you can buy a company in the toilet instead?
    With that in mind, I don't see the big deal about the customer database. It's Egghead.com -> Frys.com now. They didn't sell it for the assets, they were bought out.