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The author of this blog, David T.S. Fraser, is a Canadian privacy lawyer who practices with the firm of McInnes Cooper. He is the author of the Physicians' Privacy Manual. He has a national and international practice advising corporations and individuals on matters related to Canadian privacy laws.

For full contact information and a brief bio, please see David's profile.

Please note that I am only able to provide legal advice to clients. I am not able to provide free legal advice. Any unsolicited information sent to David Fraser cannot be considered to be solicitor-client privileged.

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The views expressed herein are solely the author's and should not be attributed to his employer or clients. Any postings on legal issues are provided as a public service, and do not constitute solicitation or provision of legal advice. The author makes no claims, promises or guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of the information contained herein or linked to. Nothing herein should be used as a substitute for the advice of competent counsel.

This web site is presented for informational purposes only. These materials do not constitute legal advice and do not create a solicitor-client relationship between you and David T.S. Fraser. If you are seeking specific advice related to Canadian privacy law or PIPEDA, contact the author, David T.S. Fraser.

Sunday, November 27, 2005

To prove how much we respect your privacy, we'll spam you using your personal information leaked from a competitor

Techdirt often discusses interesting privacy stories. This one is pure gold:

Techdirt:We're Spamming You To Tell You How Much We Respect Your Privacy:
Contributed by Mike on Wednesday, October 26th, 2005 @ 11:22AM from the who-comes-out-looking-worse? dept.
Yesterday there was the story of a startup that sent a marketing message that revealed all the email addresses of people on their list. While the company blamed it on a 'technical error' rather than the very human error that it was, they also insisted that the addresses were 'secure' despite not being able to really promise that. As if to drive that fact home, a competitor has now spammed the entire list, childishly claiming that they would do a better job 'respecting your privacy.' Of course, as theRegister points out, if that were true, they wouldn't have gone out and spammed that whole list, would they? In this case, both firms come out looking bad. The first one for not admitting how badly they screwed up, and the second one for exploiting the situation. "

The original post at Techdirt has links to the original news stories.

Labels: information breaches