Grand Theft Identity -- Plus A Big Bonus
from the fun-for-everyone dept
theodp writes "The fast-growing $53 billion a year identity theft industry gets the cover of this week's Newsweek. ID thieves, who pay as little as $200 for 300 credit cards, may have less than a 1 in 700 chance of being convicted. Also disturbing is corporate America's response to the problem. After Checkpoint sold the financial secrets of 145,000 consumers to con artists, its CEO still got a $1.8 million performance bonus. And the billion-dollar industry that has emerged to sell people protection against data theft is run by some of the same folks that fail to protect the info in the first place." If you hadn't realized, it's all a big scam. The people who created the problem got rewarded for it, and are now making big money pretending to fix the problem -- and, yet, nothing actually changes.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
The Solution
It's ironic but here is a case where extending all those draconian copyright laws to include your identity as a protected work could actually help you. Or something new similar to this.
Once such a law would pass, then the public would finally have recourse to sue the 'information brokers' for damages for abuse of their identity or profile.
It's only then that things will begin to change. Otherwise, they will stay as they are.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The Solution
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The Solution = CLASS ACTION SUIT
CLASS ACTION SUIT ANYONE ?
Where the hell are the ambulance chasers ?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Sounds like politics doesn't it
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
serious problem
[ link to this | view in chronology ]