Borders Bust Means B&N May Get Your Shopping History 230
coondoggie writes "To perhaps no one's surprise, Borders bookstore collected a ton of consumer information — such as personal data, including records of particular book and video sales — during its normal course of business. Such personal information Borders promised never to share without consumer consent. But now that the company is being sold off as part of its bankruptcy filing, all privacy promises are off. Reuters wrote this week that Barnes & Noble, which paid almost $14 million for Borders' intellectual assets (including customer information) at auction last week, said it should not have to comply with certain customer-privacy standards recommended by a third-party ombudsman."
That's awesome! (Score:5, Informative)
From the privacy policy (Score:5, Informative)
You have to scroll way down to find this, but this is part of the Borders privacy policy:
Disclosures in connection with acquisitions or divestitures.
Circumstances may arise where for strategic or other business reasons Borders decides to sell, buy, merge or otherwise reorganize its own or other businesses. Such a transaction may involve the disclosure of personal and other information to prospective or actual purchasers, or receiving it from sellers. It is Borders' practice to seek appropriate protection for information in these types of transactions. In the event that Borders or all of its assets are acquired in such a transaction, customer information would be one of the transferred assets.
Re:how is this legal? (Score:5, Informative)
While IANAL, From my limited understanding of Bankruptcy law, the courts can basically dissolve nearly any contract in place.
I don' think bankruptcy can dissolve anything other than money contracts. (IANAL either).
Physical property, like land and houses are often accompanied with "contracts" such as covenants, easements, etc.
Yet even when these assets get sold thru bankruptcy you can't then claim that the easement or covenant is no longer in force.
These are public contracts that bind all future owners.
Similarly a publicly stated privacy policy, and explicitly restrictions on revealing consumer's credit card information, are public contracts.
The policy was in place at the time B&N bid on the Borders asset.
Borders explicitly stated (since 2008) in their Privacy Policy: [borders.com]
Disclosures in connection with acquisitions or divestitures. Circumstances may arise where for strategic or other business reasons Borders decides to sell, buy, merge or otherwise reorganize its own or other businesses. Such a transaction may involve the disclosure of personal and other information to prospective or actual purchasers, or receiving it from sellers. It is Borders' practice to seek appropriate protection for information in these types of transactions. In the event that Borders or all of its assets are acquired in such a transaction, customer information would be one of the transferred assets.
Similarly, B&N explicitly states (at least since April) in its privacy policy [barnesandnobleinc.com]:
Sales, mergers, and acquisitions. If Barnes & Noble becomes involved in a merger, acquisition, or any form of sale of some or all of its assets, personal information may be provided to the entities and advisors involved subject to a confidentiality agreement, and we will provide notice before any personal information is finally transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
So this seems to me to have been in the policy statements of Borders for a long time, most customers knew or should have known about this provision, and Borders provided an opt out link in the page referenced above. Therefore think B&N is well within their rights to use this information.