Parental Privacy
My first reaction was shock, then anger. Why did the baby formula company have her due date? I had shared our baby’s due date with only two businesses: my health insurance company and a Web site for expectant and new parents. When I registered to enter the Web site, I specifically requested that it not share my information with third parties.
The story of a mother whose child was stillborn, and her inability to get the marketing to stop, from “A Lost Baby, and the Pain of Endless Reminders in the Mail,” in the New York Times.
So? How does the data leak? Why don’t we have a private right of action against companies that might have leaked it?
From the article: “A good company would ask me if I wished to receive their literature.”
I feel for the poor woman, but she has this wrong. Companies are only “good” when they maximize their shareholders’ investment. Marketing does this, at the expense of being heartless, uncaring and cold.
I wouldn’t hold my breath for any private right of action against the leaking companies. Marketing is literally their lifeblood, and they’ll buy as many Congressmen as it takes to protect their livelihood.
Most of the readers of this weblog know that any information provided will be eventually shared with someone else and it is easy to be critical of others. But like this poor woman, most believe what they read (on-line and newspapers) and see/hear (TV) and are unlikely to sue anyone over these breaches of “trust.” They either don’t have the money or the know-how and those companies (who might have a flashy web-site, but are sitting in a basement in Ohio and run by a 16 y/o) take advantage of that.
“I feel for the poor woman, but she has this wrong. Companies are only “good” when they maximize their shareholders’ investment. Marketing does this, at the expense of being heartless, uncaring and cold.”
What a moronic statement. How it helps that company over the long term by sending out marketing literature to women who had stillborn babies is beyond me. The fact that that NY Times article was written is a disaster for them.
In business school direct marketing courses, which I have just taken, they teach you only to market to opt-in lists that you generate yourself. Not because it’s good ethics, but because it’s good business.
What this company did will be detrimental to the shareholders in the long run.
Phishing in Pogo’s Swamp
This week’s phishing roundup starts with sighting of a HTTPS phish. The attacker used a self-signed cert, and as we know browsers commonly fall to self-signed MITMs because of the popup madness … A new, advanced form a phishing dubbed…