FTC Warns Site Not To Sell Personal Data

itwbennett writes "The US Federal Trade Commission has warned two people associated with a now-defunct magazine and Web site for gay teens and young men that they would violate the privacy promises the publication made to subscribers by selling their personal information during a bankruptcy proceeding. The FTC, in a letter sent earlier this month, also suggested that the owners of XY Magazine and XY.com would be violating the privacy standards the company had in place before shutting down if they used the subscribers' personal information in a relaunch of the magazine or website. The personal information is listed as part of the debtor's estate in a New Jersey bankruptcy proceeding for Peter Ian Cummings, editor and founder of the magazine. Before the magazine's demise, many of the subscribers lived at home with parents."

Comments

Re:Bad Comparison

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pretty typical for any and all contractual obligations over an asset to be tossed in a bankruptcy court. E.g. say you had a patent which you'd sold thousands of covenants not to sue for, in bankruptcy ownership of the patent may be transferred without the obligation not to sue.

The FTC's recommendation is unusual and surprising and I'd expect it to be ignored or fail if challenged in court.

Re:Mr Cummings

[cappp]

To put the ruling into scale:

The magazine, published from 1996 to 2007, collected the names and street addresses of about 100,000 subscribers and photographs and articles submitted by about 3,000 former readers, the FTC letter says. In addition, XY.com, which closed in 2009, collected the names, street addresses, e-mail addresses, personal photos and online personal profiles of between 500,000 and 1 million users, the letter said.

. The original FTC letter also makes for an interesting read. They seem to rely both upon the original privacy statements and a broader sense of "fair play" in making their judgement.

In this situation, however, the continued use of the XY PI, even by the existing owner, would not necessarily be consistent with the original purpose for which the data was provided. Indeed, due to the nature of the information, the passage of time, and the closure of the magazine and website in 2007 and 2009, respectively, the continued use of the data may pose privacy risks not reasonably contemplated by subscribers when they provided the data, and not consistent with their course of dealing with the company.

Re:Promises

[grantus]

The FTC has actually filed civil lawsuits against multiple companies that the agency thought didn't live up to their privacy promises. The FTC sees the act of breaking privacy promises as a deceptive trade practice that's outlawed in the FTC Act.

Re:Bad Comparison

[tverbeek]

"The moral of the story is DON'T GIVE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION TO OTHERS."

It's rather difficult to have things delivered to you without giving them your name and address. They tend to want credit card info as well.