Borders Bust Means B&N May Get Your Shopping History

Posted by timothy on Thursday September 22, 2011 @05:14AM from the you-probably-should-have-anticipated-this dept.

coondoggie writes "To perhaps no one's surprise, Borders bookstore collected a ton of consumer information — such as personal data, including records of particular book and video sales — during its normal course of business. Such personal information Borders promised never to share without consumer consent. But now that the company is being sold off as part of its bankruptcy filing, all privacy promises are off. Reuters wrote this week that Barnes & Noble, which paid almost $14 million for Borders' intellectual assets (including customer information) at auction last week, said it should not have to comply with certain customer-privacy standards recommended by a third-party ombudsman."

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Re:how is this legal? by 0123456 · 2011-09-22 05:29 · Score: 5, Insightful

If the privacy policy said only Borders would access the data then when Borders ceases to exist than so should the data.
Data doesn't disappear just because the company does. This is why anyone who's interested in privacy should be ensuring that no-one else has their data in the first place.
A 'privacy policy' is not a legally-binding agreement, and even if it was there's no guarantee that it would apply in bankruptcy.