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Privacy Your Rights Online

Egghead Customer? Your Data Goes To Fry's 213

Posted by timothy from the fry'd-eggheads dept.
An anonymous reader says: "I bought some things from onsale.com, which then became egghead.com. Somewhere in that time, their credit card database got jacked, for which they sent me a nice e-mail saying everything was ok. Now I've got a mail that I don't like at all, with the subject 'IMPORTANT MESSAGE REGARDING THE TRANSFER OF YOUR CUSTOMER INFORMATION.' Well. that's pretty much it. egghead.com info will go to Fry's Electronics, unless the customer explicitly requests that it not. How often does it happen that when a company goes under that they just sell their customer info and just not tell anyone?" Here are links to the Egghead info page and privacy and security policy.
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Egghead Customer? Your Data Goes To Fry's More

Egghead Customer? Your Data Goes To Fry's

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  • The big question is... (Score:3, Funny)

    by caseydk ( 203763 ) on Saturday September 15, 2001 @01:26PM (#2303408) Homepage Journal
    So who owns Fry's? Is it Disney or MS or AOL-TW?
  • It seems way to often. The question is, does choosing to purchase at mean you simply choose who you hand over you right to privacy? (Don't flame me, it's a legit question.)

  • You should be happy (Score:3, Flamebait)

    by BigumD ( 219816 ) on Saturday September 15, 2001 @01:27PM (#2303415) Homepage
    Most companies that go under just sell the information outright. At least you got an opt out. I don't agree with them selling it at all, but again, at least there is an option...
    • This is the real question. If not explicitly defined in a company's privacy policy, such as Amazon.com did (saying their customer records were a business asset to be sold), do companies have the right to treat it as such? Apatently they can, although it hasn't been tested in court - but then, why did Amazon.com eplicitly state it if it were the default treatment.

      As a corolary, are companies who aquire assets of another company, bound by the agreements made by that other company? I believe as a general matter of law, this is dependant on the contract in question, but with respect to customer information, is there not a defacto contract in place, governed by the terms of the company's (the company being aquired) privacy policy? Are privacy policies transferable such that they continue to be in force with respect to the data over which they originally had effect?

      Since I am not a lawyer, I don't have the answers to these questions but I believe my understanding is sufficient to have properly posed them with respect to the legal status in question.

      --CTH
  • They didn't sell customer information and not tell anybody. If you'll read what you wrote, you'll notice they sent you an email telling you they were doing it unless you asked them not to. Not that that excuses their selling of customer info in the slightest, but at least get your facts lined up.

    -Legion

    • I think they're wondering how often companies that are going under don't tell their customers about selling the info and a way to opt out.
    • I really don't see anything wrong with them selling customer information as long as they give the customer sufficient opportunity to opt out as egghead is doing. The information is an important part of the business. Part of the sales agreement requires Fry's (or whoever bids highest) to adhear to the same privacy agreement the customer agreed to. I applaud egghead for doing this the right way. I remember when they discovered their server had been compromised a while back. I was e-mailed by them explaining what happened and then my bank called explaining what happened and gave me the option of deactivating my credit card and getting a new one.
  • There was a similar case where the company went into recievership and the reciever sold off client information as an asset of the company. I can't remember the details, but it was a real big stink here on /. and elsewhere.

    In this day and age of information though, information is an asset. Yours and likely an asset of any company you provide it to. Remember, you're not being made to give out your personal info, you're providing it in exchange (along with money sometimes) for a service.

    • The personal information was exchanged, with money for goods and/or services, with the condition that it may be used only by egghead.com, and that they may not sell it. It may be considered an asset, but it is an asset with encumbrances on its use and resale.

    • case study (Score:3, Interesting)

      by flufffy ( 192294 )
      here's a concrete example altho i do not know if it was discussed here.

      in the fall of 2000, toysmart, an online toy retailer partly owned by the walt disney corporation, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy, and announced that it was including its customer data base as one of the assets to be liquidated. disney had injected $45 million into toysmart but finally pulled the plug in may 2000, and shortly after toysmart filed for bankruptcy.

      it then emerged that toysmart considered its database of customer information to be a liquidisable asset, that it would sell, in effect, to the highest 'trustworthy' bidder.

      the federal trade commission disagreed with toysmart, and for a while considered blocking the sale, before finally allowing it to proceed under restricted conditions. notably, these conditions did not include any obligation on the part of toysmart's creditors to either inform or obtain permission from toysmart's customers. in the end, the data did not provoke a bidding frenzy: the highest offer had come from disney itself ($50,000), with the next highest offer being $15,000 from a market research firm in maine.

      for more info search google, cnet, etc., with relevant terms.

  • I got this email also (Score:5, Interesting)

    by eap ( 91469 ) on Saturday September 15, 2001 @01:30PM (#2303427) Journal
    My personal info was stolen some time back and was used fraudulently to purchase some items at egghead.com

    I tried the link to opt out, but you have to have a user id and password to do this! I don't have them because the criminal who stole my CC created them.

    As a result, there is no way for me to get them to remove my personal info, which wasn't supposed to be in their database in the first place!

    Egghead.com was also cracked about a year or so ago. They have a very poor track record of safeguarding their customers' information.

    Things like this make me want stricter privacy controls for personal information.
    • I too received this email, went to the page to opt out, and had trouble doing so. However, if you keep reading the page they also give a toll free number to call in case you have trouble using the web page.

      The number is 1-800-EGGHEAD (Mon - Fri 7AM - 5PM PST).
    • dude, here's the URL for the opt-out page:

      http://www.egghead.com/ShowPage.dll?page=b_1_opt _p

      ... and you don't need a password, it asks for your username and email address. Plus, it's just a mailto form anyway, so compose a message to the address and ask to be opt-ed out.

      Furthermore, call 1-800-EGG HEAD to get a customer service representative for help if the above process doesn't seem to work.

      Try the proceedure before you panic and say they're screwing you over! Remember, egg head no longer has anything to lose by 5% of their customers opting out this way.

  • Nothing to see here. Move along. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 15, 2001 @01:32PM (#2303430)
    1. Egghead is warning you a priori
    2. You can opt-out
    3. If you don't opt-out, Fry's (or whoever actually ends up as top bidder) will still be bound by the original privacy agreement you agreed to
    4. what more do you want from them? $100 and a blowjob?

  • No way things can change... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Nawak ( 170627 ) on Saturday September 15, 2001 @01:32PM (#2303431) Homepage
    ...since privacy helps terrorists.
  • I used to purchase things from Onsale's auction site all of the time, including my refurbished laptop 4 years ago. They had excellent selection, and if you could find what you wanted you could usually get it cheaper than anywhere else. I also bought my new digital camera from Onsale's auction site.

    Then Egghead purchased Onsale. At first Egghead did a decent job of keeping up the auctions, even imitating Onsale's not-so-hot web page design. Over the past year or two, the auctions have really fizzled - you can hardly find anything worth bidding on.

    Then there was the incident where the credit card database was cracked. This did not make any Egghead customers very happy. Add to that the fact that many of their retail items were either overpriced or out of stock, the site quickly went to the bottom of the list from which I purchase computer equipment.

    I am not saddened to see the company go under - they brought it upon themselves.

    • When it happened, it was more Onsale (flush with dot-com cash) that purchased the failing Egghead. It really just postponed the inevitable failure.

      Onsale's management figured Egghead had the better-known brand name, so the combined companies went ahead under the Egghead name.

      That's why the auction pages looked an awful lot like Onsale's...

      Whether we like it or not, customer information is a company asset - and when someone purchases a company they buy all the assets available. Including our information.

  • Customer info is one of the primary assets a business has to sell. If I were in a position to buy an existing business, I would require the customer list as part of the deal. What would be bad is if the company was just selling the info to any Tom, Dick, or Harry that wanted it.

    Just having the customer info is no guarantee of customer loyalty or repeat business. As long as it's only going to the successor company, I don't have a problem with it, but they will have to work to retain my business.

    • Re:Customer Information is an Asset (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'm very happy this is illegal in Germany, where I live. (We have some quite heavy personal data protection laws). And is it SO bad for companies being sold to send a letter to all their customers "we are selling to another company"?

      My travel agency was recently bought by another one, meaning they had to throw away their customer database (although practically nothing much but the name of the company has changed - same employees, same computers...) but gave slight fare reductions for old customers who would come back.

      OPT-IN is the way to go!

  • The Canadians have introduced bills to prevent this from happening. The company must ask your explicit permission or else both companies will be held accountable. This also leaves the door open for the good old fashioned class action lawsuit
    I'm just not sure if this was passed already or not. I guess I should find out, being Canadian and all.

    Angry White Guy

    --Consience is a hinderance only afforded by the common man
  • You can't stop the sale of customer data unless your a majority stock holder. Stock holders want to make their money back, and customer data is a tasty sale. To protect their butts they normally have a privacy contracts with "We reserve the right to modify or change, blah blah at any time."

    We don't have as much privacy you expect, credit card companies, insurance companies, banks, etc, exchange data without your permission, due to fraud and credit reporting. Even with government databases, they love selling drivers license information to companies.

    • If you the majority stock holder, you won't want to stop the sale of privacy. Because as you said, it's all about profits... So in the end, privacy will be lost under this system...

  • the changes that will take place in info (Score:4, Interesting)

    by perdida ( 251676 ) <thethreatproject@@@yahoo...com> on Saturday September 15, 2001 @01:41PM (#2303457) Homepage Journal
    Whether the data goes to Fry's or elsewhere, most data generated by virtual processes, and all other electronic transactions, will be used in ensuring security. This is especially likely due to Tuesday's tragedy.

    Information's nature will change soon.

    On NPR [npr.org] today, someone was explaining the use of electronic information as a possible alternative to ethnic, cultural, or social profiling of airplane passengers and other people who frequent public places.

    The security officials would use credit-card data, bill and purchase data, phone records, and bank data in order to verify that you have an established address, haven't moved around too much or done anything that provokes suspicion.

    In effect, we will all have different "clearance levels" in regular civilian society, which will decide for us whether we are stopped, interviewed, strip searched; what our freedom of movement and consumer activity will be; and what kinds of security-vital private sector training, such as computer or pilot skills, that we can enjoy.

    • Something like this might just pass congress 'Really, its a good idea' while people are freaking.

      Start a national database with information from DMV, Telephone, Bank, Credit Card, IRS.

      Put security clearances on peoples ID. And heck, You can already be detained if you dont have an ID.

      -
      You must be CCL 3 to fly this flight.
    • In effect, we will all have different "clearance levels" in regular civilian society, which will decide for us whether we are stopped, interviewed, strip searched; what our freedom of movement and consumer activity will be; and what kinds of security-vital private sector training, such as computer or pilot skills, that we can enjoy.

      Citizen Foobar! What is that you're doing? You just got off that escalator! Can't you see that's an Orange escalator? You know that you only have Red clearance, and are supposed to use the Red Rope that's hanging outside the window, over the moat with the spikes in it. What if someone with Orange clearance had needed that escalator, and had to get out of your way? Report for Termination immediately (in that Blue booth right there), and have a nice day!

      • Talk of a red clearance citizen using a blue termination booth is treasonous! You are undoubtably a mutant communist trying to undermine everything the Computer has done for us! Clear grounds for termination.
    • I wrote an essay about this. While I have been told it does not address issues such as "Civilian Clearance Levels" and I use gun control as my example it can be nearly any freedom. Encyrption, Right not to be stripped searched, etc.

      Anyhow

      Jeremy
  • I've been wondering if an E-mail forwarding account within the European Union would be worthwhile, so that the European Directive on Data Privacy would apply.

    • The European Directive on Data Privacy is only effective against corporations with reasonably significant financial resources inside the jurisdiction of the European Union; for example, Siemens. I haven't read it recently, but from what I remember, it wouldn't allow a claim of jurisdiction simply based on the location of an e-mail server.

      Move to the EU: then you'll get its protection.

  • I haven't purchased from Egghead (formerly Onsale) in a long time. In fact, at the least, I have ordered since their "hacker breaking" a while back.

    After I got the "we're selling you to Fry's" email I decided to opt-out but it wouldn't accept my username and password, nor could I recover my password (via their website). I thought maybe my username was incorrect, but as far as I can tell that is not the case.

    I'm wondering if my case is unique. I'm also wondering why I need a user name to opt-out. Why isn't my email enough? If I have that email setup for multiple users, then I can opt-out of all at once. I'm going to call customer support as well, but that will have to wait until Monday (thanks for the email Saturday, so that way hopefully I'll forget to opt-out by Monday).

    Of course, I'm assuming that their website is actually working properly. I have order numbers and tracking numbers for previous orders, perhaps I should just email those en masse to customer support and let them deal with it.
    • I also tried to opt out after receiving the e-mail today and was unable to. The form said that it had to be submitted by e-mail and tried to launch Outlook, which I don't use.

      I think that they are trying to make it difficult so that nobody is able to opt out. That way they have more data to sell to Fry's, home of the 90-day free rental!

  • Is Fry's even online? (Score:2, Informative)

    by shoppa ( 464619 )
    It's been a couple of years since I last was in an area that was served by Fry's, but at that time they had no online presence. In fact, they sued a guy who did them the service of putting their newspaper ads online. [doyuma.com]

    Why would Fry's not have any online presence? The obvious answer is that there is nobody in the organization who has the competence to do so.

    I would submit that Fry's is not only unaware of the security issues related to "personal data", but guaranteed to screw it up.

    • Re:Is Fry's even online? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I could be wrong, and this could already be posted... but

      Yes, Fry's has a web site (frys.com) but no online store. They bought up outpost.com and egghead.com. It seems logical that now they have an online store. Why reinvent the wheel when you can buy a company in the toilet instead?
      With that in mind, I don't see the big deal about the customer database. It's Egghead.com -> Frys.com now. They didn't sell it for the assets, they were bought out.
    • Why would Fry's not have any online presence? The obvious answer is that there is nobody in the organization who has the competence to do so.

      No, it means that for whatever reason, Fry's has chosen not to have an online presence; it's not like they can't find someone to design a website -- it seems to me that competent (or even half-competent) web designers are a dime a dozen, esp. with the dotcom implosion.

      Fry's doesn't let its reach exceed its grasp. When Fry's opens a store, it already owns the property, building and inventory outright -- as in, they don't take out loans to start stores, so there's no rush to profitability in order to cover loan payments.

      I would submit that Fry's is not only unaware of the security issues related to "personal data", but guaranteed to screw it up.

      Actually, as a Fry's employee, I can tell you that our customer database isn't all it's cracked up to be as it is. I've worked returns, where we have the ability to pull up information on a transcation even if you don't have your receipt (the receipt helps things immensely, though) by CC number, bank account number (if a check was used), customer number, etc.

      When I think of the number of people who have multiple customer numbers that come up when I do a search based on method of payment (so far as I can tell, the cashiers don't bother to look up a customer, they just create a new entry), I'd have to imagine that our database is about as valuable a resource for customer profiling as Hotmail's is...

      Jay (=
  • It's for this exact reason that I'm yet to purchase anything from a web site, save for my now non-existant domain name. I'm not saying that nobody should buy anything on the Internet, or that it's a bad thing to begin with.

    But lets face it. Even now, after the "dot bust" or whatever it is called today, there still are sites that are getting hacked, Internet companies that are going bankrupt, etc. And everytime that happenes, my personal information is in danger of becoming public, or that it falls into the wrong hands.

    I know dozens of people, some of them my friends, who have had their credit card numbers stolen. My best friend lost $400 on his VISA, and if it wouldn't have been for the fraud protection, he would be in a deep hole right now (we're students, we're not rich people). Losing money is the worst thing that can happen, but what about the little things? I'm getting 10-15 spam emails a day, and this is after some pretty drastic filters. But I know people who keep getting them in the hundreds. (I went on a trip this summer for a monts, and I had about 600 new messages). And there are many more reasons...

    And to top it all off, these companies are treating the information that you give them as something to sell. WHEN IT'S NOT EVEN THEIRS TO BEGIN WITH!!!!!!!!!!!! It's MY credit card number, it's MY name, MY address, MY age that I inputed into their database. And yet they sell it off!

    Don't get me wrong, I love the ideea of going on-line and shopping with GrogeryGateay.com, or buying anything, ordering any services online. But I'm definitely not going to do it untill I'm certain that my info and my money are safe. And ATM, no matter what anybody will say, they're not!

    • The sad thing is, companies store CC information openly on servers (whether in a DB or in a file). They claim a secure site, but they are lying (misleading the consumer - an illegal activity in most countries I believe) because the whole process (customer to delivery) is not secure, only the customer to website part is.

      Sadly, even simple, 10 minute code jobs like PGP encrypting the customer's payment details before storing them on the server are beyond most online sites. And that is very sad. My company PGP encrypts all online payments before saving them on the server, and they are only decrypted on a computer that is not connected to the Internet (even though this is not as easy as getting an email with all the details in plain text (which other sites do after the https part of the deal anyway!)). After processing, the details are deleted.

      SPAM has got much worse this year. Last year I got very few, this year I also get 10 or so a day on my personal email account, despite always having it spam-proofed one way or another. Action needs to be taken against spammers.

      Anyway, the companies T&Cs will give them the right to sell on the information you provide if they so desire.

    • It's for this exact reason that I'm yet to purchase anything from a web site, save for my now non-existant domain name.


      Oh c'mon. Do you think that your credit card numbers are safe when you buy something offline? Do you think offline companies don't sell your information? There's no difference, it all depends on the specific security and privacy policies of the company, not whether the company is online or offline.


      My best friend lost $400 on his VISA, and if it wouldn't have been for the fraud protection, he would be in a deep hole right now (we're students, we're not rich people).


      But there is fraud protection. If they don't have a signiture or other proof that you authorized the purchase, they can't make you pay for it. Credit card numbers are merely numbers, no more.

    • You appear to be under the impression that non-online retailers do not keep electronic databases of credit cards, and, in the cases when they do, their databases are never broken into.

      Dot-coms aren't the only targets of credit card fraudsters, ya know. ;)

  • I seem to remember reading a story (here on slashdot?) that Fry's was actually buying out Egghead.com not too long ago. If one company buys the assets of another, doesn't it make sense that customer data is part of that? I guess I just don't understand what all the complaining is about.
  • Selling databases of customer information is a very large business. So large in fact that a company by the name of Acxiom [acxiom.com] has become an international fortune 500 company doing just that. How much junk (snail) mail do you get? Chances are they house the records of your personal information and purchases you've made, when, where, how (credit card ..) and how much. They even print the billions of mailing labels every year. They also sell databases of customer information in electronic form. I'm sure this is how we all receive those thousands of wonderful emails asking us to sign up for insurance and toner.

    But they also do more respectable business. Like they used to manage Dillard's warehouse stock information. They'd kick the data around and tell them what's selling where, what to order more of, and where to ship it at what time of the year. Pretty cool stuff actually.

    ~LoudMusic

  • Keeping Them Out of Your Face (Score:4, Informative)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Saturday September 15, 2001 @01:59PM (#2303508) Homepage Journal
    While you can't do much to keep companies from selling your information, you can do a fair bit to keep them out of your face. For junk snail-mailers, there are several organizations that will get your name removed from the lists (Or added to a do-not-send list) and promise to dramatically reduce if not completely eliminate the amount of junk mail you get.

    For telemarketers, finding out their company, the company they represent and the first and last name of the person you're talking to before you ask them to add you to their do-not-call list is the way to go. Log that information and sue them if they ever call you again.

    For spammers your choices are more limited, especially if you don't run your own mail server. It is next to impossible to not download spam, although you can process it in such a way that you never see it. There are two solutions I like the most. The first is to keep a whitelist of people who are allowed to send you E-Mail. You can store the E-mail of anyone who has sent you mail and isn't on the list and require them to reply to a message to get added to the white list. Purge any such stored messages after a week or so. The other alternative is to reject any E-mail that's not encrypted to your obnoxiously long encryption key. A 4096 bit key takes about 30 seconds to encrypt to for a 1 page message on a P166. No spammer's going to take the time (Nor would they be capable of taking the time, if everyone did this.)

    For internet banner ads and more obnoxious features of the web, I've found that disabling popups and animations in Mozilla makes things a lot less annoying. YMMV depending on your web browser.

    And of course, if you know a company is likely to sell your information without your permission, don't do business with them and tell them why.

    We're already constantly on the verge of information overload (or well past the verge) without some company you never heard of buying your info and jamming more advertising down your throat. Pursuing your privacy like a rabid pit-bull is the only way to avoid having this happen.

  • Why is that when people post to Slashdot they must be so melodramatic and sensationalistic. If you look at the facts, you'll see that they have taken the time to alert their customers and give them a chance to OPT OUT [egghead.com] of the information transfer. Please, folks, if you're going to post a story like this, please take the time to at least get MOST of the facts right, if not all.
    • If you look at the facts, you'll see that they have taken the time to alert their customers

      They didn't bother to notify ME. I just found out because I read slashdot. And I have been an Onsale customer for about 4 years.

      and give them a chance to OPT OUT [egghead.com] of the information transfer.

      Their web form doesn't work. It just pops up a blank "mailto" window. I assume that "user name" also means number, because when I first started, all customers were just numbers :-)
      • Maybe you didn't get an e-mail because they, for whatever reason, don't have your e-mail address? If they aren't able to contact you, chances are, the company they sell this data to won't be able to contact you either. What exactly is the problem?

        If the new company *does* contact you, without warning, *then* I would be concerned...

  • Enough opt-outs, and Fry's drops the deal! (Score:4, Informative)

    by retrogmr ( 137852 ) on Saturday September 15, 2001 @02:08PM (#2303525) Homepage
    Fry's Electronics has made it a clause of the purchase that no more than 10% of Egghead.com's customers opt-out of the mailing list.

    Check this article about it on CNet:
    http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-6962164.htm l
  • Well i got there email, asked them not to sell my info. Then i got another email saying it didnt work. Anyone else have this trouble? They submit their form to an email address which i always thought was bad practice
  • If they sell my data, they should send me a check!
  • I don't understand, you get an e-mail saying that they're gonna transfer your information unless you state otherwise, and then you complain that you weren't told about it. Did you get the e-mail or didn't you?

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday September 15, 2001 @02:25PM (#2303559)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Uh (Score:1)

    by maxxon ( 124407 )
    What exactly did you expect to happen? Fry's bought Egghead's assets.
  • ----- The following addresses had transient non-fatal errors -----

    ----- Transcript of session follows -----
    ... while talking to smtp02.egghead.com.:
    >>> RCPT To:
    ... Deferred: 452 4.2.2 Mailbox full
    Warning: message still undelivered after 4 hours
    Will keep trying until message is 5 days old
  • You gave the customer information to Onsale (just as you do anywhere when you pay with a credit card). Onsale was bought by Egghead. Not surprisingly, that data when to Egghead. What did you expect them to do? Throw it away?

    Fry's electronics bought a part of Egghead (the part that had your customer data.

    The bottom line is that one company had your information in the beginning and now one company, which is a dirivative of that first company, has that same info.

    And what's the worse they can do with that information? Try to give you a good deal on a product?

  • First they store my credit card info when I make a purchase. Next they get hacked by a russian. Then they tell me everything's okay. Then I get a $10.80 balance adjustment from Citibank for an unauthorized transaction on my credit card. Then EggHead goes bust. Then they plan to sell my personal information. Then, to top it all off, the opt-out only works if you use a mail client that the browser recognizes. (<form action= 'mailto:option2@smtp02.egghead.com' method="post">)

    Sigh.
    • Sounds like you need to upgrade or re-configure your web browser to honor your preferred e-mail client.

      Or you could just send them an e-mail (clearly you found the address) or call the provided 800 number. There are few things this company could do to make this process easier for you.

      If you have a beef with Egghead as a company, that's your business, but they are doing everything they can to do the Right Thing here, and I applaud them for it, even if they've been the subject of misfortune in the past.
  • onf of our competitors went pop recently,

    we've bought their database (60,000 ppl)

    I will be emailing them and telling them that their details are now ours and giving them the option to not get emailed by us again and a url for our ToC.

    I might give them the option to have their db entry removed or I might not, I'm undecided but I'm paying good money for those details and the more entries we have the more likely someone will pay us to search it.

    The worst that can happen is that person is offered a job so I don't feel guilty. I believe in our service. I would hope many businesses believe they are offering something to truly benefit the client.

  • Nice enough for them to give you an opportunity to opt out. However...

    You have to supply your username, which I don't have (I bought something from egghead about five years ago).

    There is no mechanism for retrieving said username, as far as I can tell.

    There is no one at Egghead responsible for replying to the annoyed emails sent by me and people like me.

    So that's not really much of an opt-out, is it?

  • I was in the same situation as the poster, having purchased from onsale.com almost five years ago. Since I didn't want my data from a five-year old purchase cycling on to Fry's, I tried to use their opt-out script this morning, but it wasn't even working properly.

    How convenient.

    Bob
  • According to this news.com article [cnet.com], Fry's is requiring no moer than 10% of customers opy-out in order for the deal to go through...

    Fry's is the one everyone should be complaining about, not EggHead.


    • At the courthouse Friday, Egghead Chief Executive Jeff Sheahan said he thinks the company can transfer the data, calling the laws surrounding such privacy statements "very fluid."

      "I think we are doing the responsible thing here. We're informing people of what we are doing," Sheahan said. "This is a very gray area of the law."

      Why, Beavis - er - Jeff - because you say it is?
      These dopes figure because they didn't SAY they wouldn't, then they simply can.
      This is about the same level as a five year old who says "but nobody told me I couldn't wash the sofa with a garden hose..."

      I thought only Fry's deserved my derision - turns out Blockhead - er - Egghead gets the same treatment.

  • My e-mails been sat on mailq for the past four hours with the egghead.com inbox being full - don't waste your time replying yet awhile....
  • What if instead there was a "frequent fryer program". Would people be complaining or would they be outraged because their information wasn't merged?

    Sometimes when I'm in Fry's I wished there was a "gold member" short line. (especially in returns)
  • Fry's isn't JUST buying your customer info from Egghead.com. They are BUYING Egghead.com. According to a speech given by Randy Fry (President) in Austin at the Grand Opening of the first Fry's in town a couple of weeks ago.

    He mentioned that while Fry's had never had an online presence, it was time to develop one. And he felt the best way to do that was to purchase Egghead rather than building from scratch.

    BTW, how do I know this? I was working for Fry's at the time and was able to catch this handy little tidbit...
  • Anyone who has ever experienced the joy of shopping at Fry's knows that there isn't a single person employed by the company that is capable of making use of this data. I love the store, it is a geek warehouse, but don't expect any help. The only thing faster than their employee turnover rate is how quickly their employees will run from you if you have a question.

    They have how many stores in silicon valley and how long did it take them to have a web presence? For the longest time any search for "Fry's Electronics" would just bring up pages flaming them. I seriously doubt that they have the know-how to make use of this data.

  • It needs to said... (Score:1, Redundant)

    by matthewg ( 6374 )
    All your data are belong to Fry!

  • Cash (Score:1)

    by yusing ( 216625 )
    If you walk into a store and buy with cash, there is no customer information to be sold. No signature, no wait for verification, no record at the bank, no risk of employee theft.


    Cash... enjoy the retro.

  • I remember when they first got started...they trawled eBay for email addresses and proceeded to spam everybody. You don't get much lower on the food chain than that.

    At that point, I vowed to never buy a thing from Onsale. I've done just fine without them (their prices usually weren't all that great anyway...ditto for Egghead), and it's somewhat comforting that their "bad karma" is about to catch up with them.

    (eBay long ago fixed its system to make what Onsale did nearly impossible...you can still retrieve other users' email addresses, but you have to be logged in to do that, and I suspect that all address requests are logged. A bot trawling for addresses now would stick out like a sore thumb.)

  • so... egghead sends email to the email address
    on file offering an opt-out.
    but, your email-on-file happened to have change
    (is no longer valid). you don't get it, you
    don't opt-out.

    egghead goes ahead and sells that info to Fryes...

    i wonder if Fryes has any idea of the *quality*
    of info they are buying?

    i kinda like this possibility :)

  • And no, thet don't have to tell you about it.
    Why?

    You don't have a de-facto right to control your information in the US, that's why. The database of information the company lawfully collected in their business dealings is THEIR asset to do what they want with (within the law, of course).

    The individual records, they aren't that valuable. You don't 'own' all information about you in the world. The database as a whole has value.

    As for them getting hacked, and losing their credit card info.. why do you feel so personally burned? The credit card belongs to the issuer, not you, and it's not YOUR problem if it's abused, it's the issuers. Yes, it may be slightly inconvenient to you to get it replaced.. though they informed you. Even though they said 'everything is okay', you can still call your credit card company up and request a new card because you suspect your current one has been compromised. They will send you a new one immediately at no charge.

    I don't see what the big deal is.

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