Ecommerce liability

19 Jun 2003

Is your Web site secure against common hacker attacks? You’d better be sure. Guess just settled a case with the US Government where they were accused of not doing enough to protect consumer data. A security breach leaves you open to lawsuits from your customers, bad press, and now fines from the government.

Guess was fined for leaving customer data vulnerable even though the companies published policies stated that they took steps to protect customer data. This might have something of a chilling effect on public-facing privacy policies. One of my clients was advised by their lawyer not to post a privacy policy. The lawyer’s reasoning was that if you don’t make it public you can’t be sued for not abiding by it.

Trackback from Compendium
June 20, 2003 6:47 AM

Ditching privacy policies?

Excerpt: Adam Kalsey says at least some companies are trying to eliminate liabilities for violating their Web site's privacy policies (for example, if a hacker gets into a customer database) by eliminating their privacy policies.

Philip Tellis
October 31, 2003 12:39 AM

Would be nice if you used the term “cracker” instead of “hacker”


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