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Companies To Be Liable For Deals With Online Criminals
Dionysius, God of Wine and Leaf, sends us to DarkReading for a backgrounder on new rules from the FTC, taking effect in November, that will require any business that handles private consumer data to check its customers and suppliers against databases of known online criminals. Companies that fail to do so may be liable for large fines or jail time. In practice, most companies will contract with specialist services to perform these checks. Yet another list you don't want to get on. "The [FTC's] Red Flag program... requires enterprises to check their customers and suppliers against databases of known online criminals — much like what OFAC [the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control] does with terrorists — and also carries potential fines and penalties for businesses that don't do their due diligence before making a major transaction."
This sounds like quite an onerous burden on businesses, and I imagine it will be struck down by the courts soon enough unless it's much narrower and specific a regulation than the story makes it appear. Private parties should not be expected to do the job of law enforcement.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
No? How about forged packet Comcast? No again? What about exposing most of the internet to id theft and cross site scripting Barefruit? Not a very thorough list, is it?
At first this sounds like an incentive for businesses not to conduct transactions with criminals. Take identity theft, for example. I don't want vendors consorting with thieves, should somebody steal my credit card info. But how should vendors know it's a thief and not me? It's not reasonable.
Worst case scenario: this turns out to be another vague No-Fly list that persecutes the innocent while doing little to no actual good. In any case, it will be more work and more liability for vendors.
Companies that fail to do so may be liable for large fines or jail time
They're going to put whole companies in jail?
But at any rate, after Sony's criminal rootkit vandalism of millions of computers, I'm going to have to see a CEO in shackles before I believe it. And Martha Stewart doesn't count.
For those of you unfamiliar with Sony's evil, deliberate vandalism, here are two links:
serious
content-free
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I remember a common threat in grade school was "this will be on your permanent record". We used to joke about it - it seemed ridiculous.
As an adult, it's starkly clear to me that "permanent records" do exist for all of us, and they control our lives to a large degree. Credit reports, "no-fly" lists, and now this "red flag" list - somewhere out there grim people in small offices quietly compile lists of citizens whom they feel should be "less free".
What kind of oversight exists for this list? What does one have to do (or not do) to appear on it? If you're on it, how can you be removed?
I wish I could say I was surprised by this new step towards an Orwellian dystopia, but the past several years have numbed me to it.
The FTC page that the original article links to
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/10/redflag.shtm
Only talks about financial institutions and creditors. It doesn't seem to indicate that Mary's Online Potpourri Barn has to do a background check on everybody that orders a lemon scented candle.
Mastercard is the one doing actual business with terrorists... why aren't THEY responsible for this "small" fee?
This seems like some kind of backdoor conviction without a trial. If the government "knows" these people are criminals, why haven't they been arrested, convicted, and sentenced? If the government is forbidding people to do business with these people, shouldn't they have a trial or some kind of public hearing where the facts are presented?
This kind of thing seems like it could lead to rampant abuse, or at least error if someone winds up on one of these lists that shouldn't be on it.
AccountKiller
1. Inocent until proven guilty. So why should there be a black list of people who havn't been threw justice system.
2. Rights after you serve your time. So if the person was an online criminal and served his/her time. Is is really reasonable to block them for using the inernet ever again, espectially in a world with increasing demmand to use the internet for daily communication and comerse.
3. People on probation is such a small portion of a list that the forced blacklist is an undue burden.
4. These people are criminals... They have been proven to be untrustworthy, what makes it so they don't lie on an online form or use someone elses idenity.
5. Small ISP and companies don't have resources to do this. a 10-15k project for a big company is a drop in the bucket for for a small ISP it is a huge undertaking, which could kill it.
6. Why punish honest/trusting people. America's growth was based on contract by handshake. There are a lot of companies that still want to keep that type additude. But laws like this make it so you need a lawer for everthing... (on a side note why the hell do we keep electing lawers into government)
7. In a slumbing echonomy is it prudent to make it difficult for people to do business.
8. If it forces criminals to be smarter and hide their tracks more, doesn't it make it more difficult for authorities to track such people.
9. If the criminals cannot work online they will still be criminals and be on the street with guns and drugs.
10. What happends if your name matches a criminal.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The "Do Not Fly" list already has shown how well false positives work - it's caused trouble for people who are wrongly put onto the list. Those with particularly common names will have particular trouble.
Unless there's a swift and clear grievance system, this will cause so many false positives that positives will be worked around. And who says that any bad people wouldn't steal or set up identities under which to do business?
The end result in three years? There will be lots of news about false positives, and the bad guys will just use more ID theft. Which will put those with stolen IDs into still more of a mess.
I don't think that this passed the "run it by a six-year-old first" test.
This is where a pardon is supposed to come in. Pardons aren't just for the wealthy and the connected. They're also for the 30-year-olds who did something stupid at 19 while drunk, paid their dues (fines, revocation of privileges such as driver's license, and/or jail time) and haven't had a criminal charge since. A successful pardon application, which may take a year or two to process, should also automatically (I hope!) remove your name from all criminal registries, including sex offender registries (though I imagine that these would be harder to get pardons for).
Ok, maybe I'm dreaming...