Slashdot Mirror
Bank Goofs, and Judge Orders Gmail Account Nuked
An anonymous reader writes "The Rocky Mountain Bank, based in Wyoming, accidentally sent confidential financial information to the wrong Gmail account. When Google refused to identify the innocent account owner's information, citing its privacy policy, the bank filed in Federal court to have the account deactivated and the user's information revealed. District Judge James Ware granted the bank's request, with the result that the user has had his email access cut off without any wrongdoing or knowledge of why." The Reg's earlier story says, "Rocky Mountain Bank had asked to court to keep its suit under seal, hoping to avoid panic among its customers and a 'surge of inquiry.' But obviously, this wasn't successful."
Because the customer in question gave the bank a gmail account and said "send me information via this email address". Do you really think that your ISP-based email address is any better than gmail? If so, could I interest you in some waterfront property in Florida? Seriously. Unless the contents of the email is encrypted before it is sent, assume the whole fricken' world (with lasers,even) has access to it.
linquendum tondere
The bank is worried about a panic amongest it's customer base. So they obviously sent informtaion on a large number of their customers, that tells you the person requesting the info was not a bank customer but another financial institution or a company they contract with of some sort. These type of recipients are going to have their own domain names and mail servers running on them, so there's no reason the email should have been addressed to a gmail account to start with if it dealt with official business.
Actually that's not what happened.
That's a lot of very confidential information. No bank customer has the need or right to see anybody else private information, let alone 1299 of them. And you are a moron for thinking this was about somebody's bank statement going to the wrong address.
Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
I don't know about you, but if a bank suddenly sent me 1,300 account's financial information, and then sent me an email telling me not to open it, I would be sending an email, calling, writing a letter, anything, because if something happens later to any of those accounts, I'm going to be one of the first people looked at.
If it were me, I wouldn't be doing any of those things. That's because I'd've deleted the initial e-mail without reading it. An e-mail purporting to be from a bank I've never done business with is either a) an advertisement I'm not interested in, b) a phishing attempt I don't want to even look at let alone respond to, or c) information I don't need and don't want. Regardless of which it is, I've no need and no reason to even look at it, so into the bit bucket it goes. And why not? I'm under no obligation to read random correspondence someone else wants to send me, just like I'm under no obligation to read that wad of advertising flyers that show up in my mailbox every day.