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ChoicePoint -- What We Learned from Our Screw-up

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the ahem-ahem-ahem dept.

xpangler points out an article in Baseline magazine in which "ChoicePoint's lead privacy & compliance executives talks about the 'more than 30' new practices and procedures the company has put in place since it mistakenly sold private data on 163,000 people to Nigerian criminals last year."

3 of 60 comments (clear)

  1. Turn off the spin by HardCase · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What repercussions? Did they lose business? Sure they got hit with a 10 million dollar fine but look at their financial statements, that is barely a drop in the bucket for them.

    It was a total of $15 million, plus another $4 million in other obligations imposed by the FTC (like third party auditing). Insurance covered $11 million of the $19 million, but Choicepoint had to pony up $8 million of their own money. If you look at their financial statments, you'll see that it's no slap on the wrist - it represented half of their cash. In terms of yearly income, it's about 7% of what the company makes. Plus, I suspect that their insurer will either raise their liability insurance rates or drop them altogether.

    I'd say that the penalty was fair. It's not necessary to drive the company out of business - just necessary to give them a sting so that they don't do it again.

    -h-

  2. Their Other "Mistake" by edward.virtually@pob · · Score: 3, Interesting

    When are they going to talk about their "mistake" in 2000 when they helped Bush steal the election in Florida by illegally removing blacks from the voting rolls? Or has everyone forgotten about that by now? It'd sure be nice to see some of these traitors to our country get their Constitutionally mandated punishment, vs. being interviewed in magazines.

  3. Consider the Source by ZWithaPGGB · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ms. DiBattiste doesn't have a very good rep as a privacy advocate.