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Victoria's Secret Fined for Security Leak
An anonymous reader submits: "The state of New York has fined Victoria's Secret for failing tomaintain secure access to customer purchase records. Last year, a customer noticed that it was possible to look up online purchase records by manipulating their website. However, this was not consistent with the company's posted privacy policy. After getting brushed by VS's Customer Service, the guy contacted the media. NY State AG Eliot Spitzer took action under 1930s laws regarding deceptive business practices. VS settled to pay a $50 000 fine, notification of affected customers, fixing the site, and all without admitting violation of law."
I had a friend who worked in a Victoria's Secret. He made great use of the peepholes behind the dressing rooms. Talk about a security problem.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Here's the link to Victoria's Secret Web site. I mean, come on, you post a link to a newspaper article withouth actually linking through to this fine site?
This guy publicized a security flaw, why hasn't he been sued yet?
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
Just Curious, if the State needed the support of the company, wouldnt they go after you for some DMCA laws? (Election year and such)
Could you use the SLAPP law argument against the STATE or Company?
Just seems the politics has a hand in this, if it wasnt Victoria Secrets, but a law firm, the person who reported it could have been targeted as a criminal.
Nice to see the law work correctly for once. But then, anything can happen...
There's also info at the same page concerning some other cool Internet work that the NY Attorney General has done.
Tomaintain is not a typo. It is a new kind of fruit -- the cross between a tomato and a plantain. The extra 'i' is due to the redneck farmers (read: Homer Simpson) who created it. Sort of like tomacco, but not addictive. I just wonder what tomaintains have to do with Victoria's Secret.
If I break the law, I don't have the same luxury, how is this equal protection?
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
McDonald's Frivolous Lawsuit
I always thought the McDonalds case was frivolous till I read the facts. Check out McFacts about the case.
Pasted here.
McFact No. 1: For years, McDonald's had known they had a problem with the way they make their coffee - that their coffee was served much hotter (at least 20 degrees more so) than at other restaurants.
McFact No. 2: McDonald's knew its coffee sometimes caused serious injuries - more than 700 incidents of scalding coffee burns in the past decade have been settled by the Corporation - and yet they never so much as consulted a burn expert regarding the issue.
McFact No. 3: The woman involved in this infamous case suffered very serious injuries - third degree burns on her groin, thighs and buttocks that required skin grafts and a seven-day hospital stay.
McFact No. 4: The woman, an 81-year old former department store clerk who had never before filed suit against anyone, said she wouldn't have brought the lawsuit against McDonald's had the Corporation not dismissed her request for compensation for medical bills.
McFact No. 5: A McDonald's quality assurance manager testified in the case that the Corporation was aware of the risk of serving dangerously hot coffee and had no plans to either turn down the heat or to post warning about the possibility of severe burns, even though most customers wouldn't think it was possible.
McFact No. 6: After careful deliberation, the jury found McDonald's was liable because the facts were overwhelmingly against the company. When it came to the punitive damages, the jury found that McDonald's had engaged in willful, reckless, malicious, or wanton conduct, and rendered a punitive damage award of 2.7 million dollars. (The equivalent of just two days of coffee sales, McDonalds Corporation generates revenues in excess of 1.3 million dollars daily from the sale of its coffee, selling 1 billion cups each year.)
McFact No. 7: On appeal, a judge lowered the award to $480,000, a fact not widely publicized in the media.
McFact No. 8: A report in Liability Week, September 29, 1997, indicated that Kathleen Gilliam, 73, suffered first degree burns when a cup of coffee spilled onto her lap. Reports also indicate that McDonald's consistently keeps its coffee at 185 degrees, still approximately 20 degrees hotter than at other restaurants. Third degree burns occur at this temperature in just two to seven seconds, requiring skin grafting, debridement and whirlpool treatments that cost tens of thousands of dollars and result in permanent disfigurement, extreme pain and disability to the victims for many months, and in some cases, years.
Victoria's Secret gets fined for having a
"Don't get your panties in a bunch" attitude towards online purchase security.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass