Slashdot Mirror
It's Easy To Steal Identities (Of Corporations)
jfruh writes "Two lawyers in Houston were able to exploit business filing systems to seize control of dormant publicly traded corporations — and then profit by pushing their worthless stock. In many states, anyone can change important information about a publicly registered company — including the corporate officers or company contact information — without any confirmation that they have anything to do with the company in the first place. Massachusetts requires a password to do this through the state registry's website, but they'll give you the password if you call and ask for it. Long focused on individual ID theft, state governments are finally beginning to realize that corporate ID theft is a huge problem as well."
Corporations are people too!
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I'll accept that a corporation is people.
I will not accept that a corporation is a person (of its own).
There's a big difference there.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
There is a difference between "personhood" and being a legal entity. Corporations are legal entities, in that they can perform legal actions, but they are not natural persons, for obvious reasons. In most countries (such as those in Europe), the distinction between legal persons and natural persons is made. This because natural persons have additional rights (beyond the obvious human rights).
Simple example: consumer law applies to natural persons trading with a legal person, but not to trade between different legal persons (ie. business to business transactions). If you have your own one-man company, buying for yourself or for the company still matters.
I'm not sure what the US perspective is, but from the complaining on /., it seems that the problem is that rights intended for natural persons is attributed to legal persons (ie. corporations). That's not a good idea. Here's an example why:
Imagine that corporations would send money to politicians, hiding it by claiming "privacy". Obviously, privacy is a right intended for natural persons (some formulations of human rights include a definition of privacy). Corporations do not need a right to privacy*. And it is easily exploited for blatant corruption.
Okay, that is a huge hyperbole, but I think it clarifies the point.
* obviously, they do have the right to kick you off their property. Property is attributed to legal persons.