Slashdot Mirror
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."
Most teenagers shouldn't have anything to worry about because responsible parents will have programs like Cyber Patrol and CYBERsitter installed to prevent their children and teenagers from accessing these sexually oriented sites. It's funny because under the Australian Internet filter this type of situation wouldn't even be an issue.
[I'll spell this out early on here. I am not a Troll, just offering some political sarcasm, thank you very much. Remember, your Nanny loves you and only wants what's best for YOU].
Bah. Stop trying to invent a new /. meme. It's not even funny.
The FTC's recommendation is unusual and surprising and I'd expect it to be ignored or fail if challenged in court.
It's going to be a pretty interesting storm if this fails if challenged in court, because it creates a semi-legal avenue for personal information harvesting, bypassing just about all privacy laws (barring perhaps things like HIPAA).
In slashdot terms:
And this same news was posted expect for the fact that the magazine was substituted with website. "Before the website's demise, many of the subscribers lived at home with parents."
Self-debasing humor aside, you have rather a significant difference between a site like Slashdot selling out, and a magazine for gay teens.
Most notably, paying for and receiving a physical magazine means the company has your name, CC info, and physical address; Slashdot has a dynamic IP address, a largely anonymous handle, a throwaway contact email address that likely filled with spam and died at least five years ago, and knows my default comment threshold.
Not to mention, society doesn't stigmatize geekdom (these days) quite the same way it does homosexuality. Although I find the Slashdot crowd far more tolerant of such issues than the general public, our "perverse love" of technology rarely gets us lynched.
"It's pretty typical for any and all contractual obligations over an asset to be tossed in a bankruptcy court."
However, it's not so simple when an asset held by the bankrupt company wasn't really theirs to sell in the first place. Suppose they had a fleet of cars which were leased. If they go bankrupt during the lease, they have to give the cars back, and cannot sell them.
In a sense, the personal information was leased to company; it was never theirs to sell and shouldn't become theirs to sell just because of bankruptcy.
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There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
It's true that sometimes people do fear retribution for political actions, and justifiably so, but the only way to foster an open discourse, where social norms don't favor revenge or retribution, is to be open about one's beliefs and contribute to healthy debate.
Can I mod something +1 Scary if it's true but I wish it weren't?
No one is trying to prevent people from exercising their civil rights. They are, however, trying to prevent people from perverting an existing institution designed to build families.
So would you be in favour of prohibiting the marriage of heterosexual persons who do not plan on raising children?
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time