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French ISP Orange Fined For Offensive Temporary Password

Posted by samzenpus on from the you-said-what dept.

courteaudotbiz writes "French ISP Orange has been fined 13000 Euros after being sued by a man named Mohamed Zaidi, who has been assigned the temporary password 'salearabe' (dirtyarab) by e-mail after he placed a support call. At the hearing, the prosecutor called the password 'offensive, insulting and even defamatory.'"

2 of 18 comments (clear)

  1. bad translation, unsurprising judgment by Keith_Beef · · Score: 3, Informative

    Bad Google translation... The decision, as reported in the Canadian press, was that Orange was fined 500 euros (7700 $CAN) and ordered to pay 8 000 euros (12 400$ CAN) in damages to the plaintiff. This term "sale arabe" is more or less equivalent to "nigger". It's used as an insult to people of North African (i.e. predominantly Algerian, Morrocan, Tunisian) origin, and is considered extremey offensive. K.

  2. Random password generators by Chuq · · Score: 3, Funny

    This reminds me of when I used to work ISP helpdesk and due to our contract with the local University, we had someone there signing people up - in this case, it was my turn. I had just completed the sign up procedure for an extremely hot blonde, and out came the printout with all the details on it - I looked at it and turned to her ... "um, I'll just generate you a different password"... I don't think she would have appreciated 'rapeShave9' for some reason.

    --
    - Chuq