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."
Glad I never bought from them. (Score:2)
Hope this never happens to Amazon...
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Hope this never happens to Amazon...
What difference would it make?
Amazon UK has been spamming me with the same book I bought a month and a half ago. Would it matter if B&N does it too?
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Hope this never happens to Amazon...
What difference would it make?
Amazon UK has been spamming me with the same book I bought a month and a half ago. Would it matter if B&N does it too?
You are extremely naive if you think that is the only implication here.
Yes the book you bought is the valueable info (Score:2)
Re:Yes the book you bought is the valueable info (Score:4, Interesting)
Just the list of valid e-mail addresses and credit card info is next to priceless in the wrong hands...
One is left to wonder how long until some large enough criminal organization buys up this information at the bankruptcy auction.
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I believe the point is information was shared under the assumption that it would remain confidential, the fact that a company purchasing the scraps of the company that entered into this agreement is no longer willing to honor those conditions is a little disconcerting; it could potentially set a precedent where other information can be "released" without your consent simply because a company stops existing.
Re:Glad I never bought from them. (Score:4, Interesting)
The real question is whose asset is your information. Consider that your information is on loan, subject to conditions of contract being fulfilled, at any time you are entitled to recall your private data and in turn the company is no longer required to provide you will value based upon the loan of that data.
The company has gone bankrupt and as such is no longer able to fulfil the conditions of contract the were the basis of the loan of your private data, failure to adhere to the conditions of contract means your private data must be returned to you ie. deleted.
You private data can not be transferred upon bankruptcy under new conditions, because the bankrupt company now owes you a debt, your privacy because it no longer can provide contracted services.
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As I understand it, information _about_ you isn't owned by you. Even if it was, companies would just put a clause in their TOS/EULA/Contract/whatever wherein you grant them full and unrestricted use of your information. You could of course refuse these terms, but unless you are prepared to live in the woods somewhere off the land.. good luck with that.
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the fact that a company purchasing the scraps of the company that entered into this agreement is no longer willing to honor those conditions is a little disconcerting;
I would say that a company that WOULD honor a set of conditions that it was not party to in the face of a hefty profit would be the surprise. "No longer willing" implies that they were once willing to do so, something that isn't true. They've never been willing to protect Border's data and were not part of any privacy agreement between customers and Borders.
Borders said they wouldn't use the data. Borders is the one who broke the agreement by including that data in the sale, but I doubt they had much say
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A DA riffling through what people bought in his district finds that certain people bought rolling paper, grinders, and an occasional scale.
And anybody foolish enough to buy that combination of items, on Amazon, is an idiot. Those are all items you buy in person, with cash.
That being said, those are all legal items and no sane judge would issue a search warrant based on this type of flimsy circumstantial evidence alone.
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Hope this never happens to Amazon...
In all seriousness,
/.er who's set up rules for Amazon and the like to be automatically shunted into a different folder.
How long until Gmail "prioritises" all advertising into a "secondary" inbox that is not presented with ones personal mail by default.
I'm certain I'm not the only
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Does Amazon actually send you stuff you don't want? All I get from them are order and shipping confirmations, perhaps I clicked something about not sending me advertisements.
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This. I've never received junk email from Amazon and I've been a customer since 1997.
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I set up a filter for that. I sometimes need to add a new "newsletter" to it, but it sends those mails that are not-quite-spam to a seperate folder. I can skim over that every few days (cause these com from companys that I perhaps want to do business again with) but they don't disturb me with ringing my phones new mail alert.
how is this legal? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:how is this legal? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the privacy policy said only Borders would access the data then when Borders ceases to exist than so should the data.
Data doesn't disappear just because the company does. This is why anyone who's interested in privacy should be ensuring that no-one else has their data in the first place.
A 'privacy policy' is not a legally-binding agreement, and even if it was there's no guarantee that it would apply in bankruptcy.
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No, no it's much worse than that.
Corporations can't be killed. They can be consumed by another corporation but the bits and pieces (especially bits these days) never dies. New corporations feed off the rotting entrails of older ones but they grow up to be functionally all the same.
Much worse than a Zombie infection. Sort of like a rootkit. Reboot all you like, it's still there.
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A "deceptive business practice" clause that could cover this kind of thing.
Well, yeah, if there was anyone left to enforce it against. Which there isn't. Because the whole point of Chapter 7 is that tere's nothing left.
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The Elephant In The Room (Score:4, Interesting)
If so, then let me point out the elephant in the room:
When are Google and Facebook going into bankruptcy and who's going to buy them?
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I think part of this is legal - B&N doesn't want to find itself ensnared by legal complications resulting from deficiencies in Borders' data collection or handling practices.
Even if B&N never in a million years intends to misuse the information, it's still worthwhile for them to attempt to indemnify against the possibility.
An example of this same kind of thing is that in states which allow one to carry a concealed weapon, there are many people who hold permits even though they never actually carry t
Re:how is this legal? (Score:5, Insightful)
While IANAL, From my limited understanding of Bankruptcy law, the courts can basically dissolve nearly any contract in place. So as far as the Bankruptcy court is concerned the Private Policy doesn't exist, and they can sell the information off regardless of what the Private Policy said. The Privacy Policy only protects against what Borders itself can do with the data in the course of their own business, but once you get to Bankruptcy court then all bets are off. That is the problem with Privacy Policies.
Now, if another company simply bought Borders then the Privacy Policy would still be in effect. The issue only comes into play when a company goes through Bankruptcy. Privacy Policies might even survive restructuring under Chapter 11 Bankruptcy; but it won't likely survive Chapter 7 Bankruptcy.
That said, I think this is one area that Congress should address and fix - so the Bankruptcy courts are not so free to break the Privacy Policies, however restrictive the company may have made them.
Re:how is this legal? (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if you could use the theory that the information isn't Borders', it's yours - and by breaking the contract under which it was provided, Borders no longer has a right to it.
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This exact issue is also affects cloud computing as a whole.
Take a cloud provider goes out of business. Another entity buys up all their servers, and now has free and complete access to the former clients' data. All data can be sold to the highest bidder (even if it is in a hostile country), or just slap it on a 20TB BitTorrent off of thepiratebay? Easily done, and there is not one thing legally that can be done about it.
Until the bankruptcy code addresses this with a stipulation that all data is either
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This exact issue is also affects cloud computing as a whole.
Take a cloud provider goes out of business. Another entity buys up all their servers, and now has free and complete access to the former clients' data. All data can be sold to the highest bidder (even if it is in a hostile country), or just slap it on a 20TB BitTorrent off of thepiratebay? Easily done, and there is not one thing legally that can be done about it.
Until the bankruptcy code addresses this with a stipulation that all data is either erased (with certificates of destruction of data or physical media), one needs to assume any and all "privacy policies" are "we will give any info to any and all we please."
While (again) IANAL, that is probably a little farther fetched as the Bankruptcy court would probably recognize the contract in place and not recognize that data as belonging to the company. Not to say it couldn't happen, but it'd be a lot harder to have happen than the Privacy issue as there is an actual service contract involved. (Not so with the Privacy Policy.)
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Very true. To us, it makes sense. However, what is needed in order for this to not be something that ends up bounced in the courts for years is a clear law -- client data on a company that goes bankrupt? The physical machine's drives get zeroed (if the drives support cryptographic erasures), or physically destroyed, and a third party certifies that this has been done to the bankruptcy court.
Ideally, we need a data protection act, where unless there is explicit reason for data to remain on a machine (intr
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Very true. To us, it makes sense. However, what is needed in order for this to not be something that ends up bounced in the courts for years is a clear law -- client data on a company that goes bankrupt? The physical machine's drives get zeroed (if the drives support cryptographic erasures), or physically destroyed, and a third party certifies that this has been done to the bankruptcy court.
Ideally, we need a data protection act, where unless there is explicit reason for data to remain on a machine (intrusion attempt, motion of discovery), it has to be destroyed within a reasonable time frame (30 days for Web logs, 12 months for back purchases, etc.) This way, the damage from a bankruptcy would be limited.
Agreed.
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.
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Frequently, companies refuse to honor warranties after bankruptcy.
GM is now doing this regarding an issue with the Chevrolet Impala. They are refusing to warranty work that is covered under the warranty on the grounds that pre-bankruptcy GM and the current GM are two different companies.
This is common.
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WHile (again) IANAL, I think there is a big difference there. For example, easements are a matter of law - the land in the easement doesn't technically belong to the land holder even though they assume responsibility
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The problem is, there are no limits regarding privacy policies for the bankruptcy courts right now. They're just another informal, single-sided contract - one that the court can break.
But again, As I pointed out later in my post, BOTH companies have EXPLICIT statements in their on-line privacy policy stating well in advance that personal information of customers were an asset that WOULD BE INCLUDED in any sale.
So no need to break the allegedly single sided contract.
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The problem is, there are no limits regarding privacy policies for the bankruptcy courts right now. They're just another informal, single-sided contract - one that the court can break.
But again, As I pointed out later in my post, BOTH companies have EXPLICIT statements in their on-line privacy policy stating well in advance that personal information of customers were an asset that WOULD BE INCLUDED in any sale.
Again, that has little to do with the issue at hand. While IANAL the Bankruptcy court can completely ignore what they say they will do in those agreements per a sale. Most all of them state that the conditions will carry through, while the Bankruptcy court can completely ignore that if it so desires.
So no need to break the allegedly single sided contract.
Unless you as an individual (i) sign a copy, (ii) return the signed copy to them, and (iii) receive a copy of what you signed with a signature of one of their representatives (either before or after you signed) then it is a single-sided contract as they are defining the terms of which you have no say in the matter. That is a legal definition. There is no "allegation" going on.
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This is an asset they wanted, that was attached to a promise (contract) - basically a liability attached to the asset. Bankruptcy is often used to restructure debt, but this obligation/liability is an intrinsic part of the asset. Better that data be destroyed than transferred apart from the promises of privacy that made the collection of it possible int he first place. If the separation of the data from the privacy policy is allowed, I can see it quickly getting abused.
IANAL, but there are several kinds of Bankruptcy. Most popular is Chapter 7, which results in Solvency, and Chapter 11/13 (11 for companies, 13 for individuals) which simply allow restructuring of the debt under court supervision. The court can break a lot of contracts in place even under Chapter 11/13; however, they tend not to so long as the contract does not prevent the company/individual from exiting Bankruptcy, which is the ultimate goal of Chapter 11/13 Bankruptcies. However, under Chapter 7 there is
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I disagree, that information IS and asset and creditors in order of seniority should have an absolute right to extract as much value in a bankruptcy up to what they lent as possible. This is a pretty fundamental concept of credit and private property which are more basic to our society that even the notion of privacy. That is why what the Obama administration did with Chrysler was such an atrocity.
They take away here is consumers need to learn the lesson that information is an asset. They need to be less
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I'm not stating anything here per what I think about whether the information is an asset. All I am saying is
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This sounds not unreasonable. B&N already has a huge amount of information on my book buying habits from my accounts with them (I have a loyalty card, and buy stuff from them online), and they've never used that to spam me excessively. I don't see why they would abuse the more limited info Borders may have on me. At best it would serve to piss me off and be less likely to use them.
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UPS from India beat FedEx from New Jersey, and was better wrapped.
Yeah, but with UPS they try to deliver it, you get home, find the card, go to the web site and tell them you'll collect it, but it's too late for them to take if off the truck so you can't collect it the next day, then the next day you go to their office wihch is only open two hours a day and queue up for half an hour and they tell you they forgot to take it off the truck so you'll have to come back again the next day.
I've often had UPS parcels take longer to cover the two miles from their depot to our hous
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Beats the hell out of Fedex, who don't come within 100 miles of me, so they receive my package on Monday, sit (possibly literally) on it until Friday, then drop it in the mail to the bus station (Which is literally 4 blocks from the Fedex office in that city!), after which I can pick it up at the local bus station probably on Wednesday.
And don't even get me started on their inability to do simple math and calculate taxes and duty properly, leading to my package getting stuck at customs for a week, without t
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UPS from India beat FedEx from New Jersey, and was better wrapped.
Yeah, but with UPS they try to deliver it, you get home, find the card, go to the web site and tell them you'll collect it, but it's too late for them to take if off the truck so you can't collect it the next day, then the next day you go to their office wihch is only open two hours a day and queue up for half an hour and they tell you they forgot to take it off the truck so you'll have to come back again the next day.
I've often had UPS parcels take longer to cover the two miles from their depot to our house than they took to travel half way around the world to the depot. With Fedex I just stop by on the way to work the next day and collect it from them, because they're actually open at sensible times.
This. UPS availability and service just blows for people who have jobs outside the home and can't loll around all day waiting for a package. It's why my first name for all UPS-delivered items (when I know the vendor is planning on using UPS, that is) is "HOLD-FOR-PICKUP", along with another note in the special delivery instructions (if the option is even available on the ordering page). Or, if all else fails, I specify my workplace as the delivery address, but I don't like to do that very often even if t
No Borders Rewards Card (Score:2)
Now I'm glad I always turned down the Borders Rewards Card.
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Borders went out of business because they were too pushy with the Rewards Card. I just wish now that I had not turned it down so I would have standing to file a petition to enter the bankruptcy proceeding as a defrauded creditor.
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You do realize that you'd be at the bottom of the list and never get any attention, right?
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The fact is, people don't care about giving away their personal information.
The final clause in all privacy policies (Score:4, Insightful)
The final clause in all privacy policies are words to the effect, "this policy is subject to change at any time, with or without notice to you." Now we have an example of what that means.
I have always regarded that a license to defraud the consumer, as they can initially offer privacy terms that are acceptable, then collect your data, then revoke the privacy protections without giving you a chance to change or delete your data.
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The final clause in all privacy policies are words to the effect, "this policy is subject to change at any time, with or without notice to you." Now we have an example of what that means.
I have always regarded that a license to defraud the consumer, as they can initially offer privacy terms that are acceptable, then collect your data, then revoke the privacy protections without giving you a chance to change or delete your data.
IANAL, but that is only there so they can update it via the website without specifically telling you what the changes are or that changes occurred. One reason for that is because it can be hard to track someone down when the only information may have changed - e.g. they moved or they got a different phone number, or a different e-mail address and (for any or all) they forgot to tell you about any of the changes. How then would you go about notifying them?
The issue here is that Bankruptcy courts have pre
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That's what they want you to think, and they may have even meant it at the time. IANAL either, but since the clause does not specify the nature or extent of changes they make, it seems to me they can change it completely, even reversing the entire spirit of the thing, and all they have to do is "post" (read, bury) a notice on their Web site somewhere.
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That's what they want you to think, and they may have even meant it at the time. IANAL either, but since the clause does not specify the nature or extent of changes they make, it seems to me they can change it completely, even reversing the entire spirit of the thing, and all they have to do is "post" (read, bury) a notice on their Web site somewhere.
True. All they have to do is update the publicly posted agreement. However, that wouldn't protect them from a Class Action lawsuit - while Bankruptcy court would. (IANAL)
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Key terms:
"from time
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Borders' Privacy Policy [borders.com] is still available. It doesn't quite seem to say that.
Exactly.
Further, Borders provided an opt-out link on their page.
And their policy statement EXPLICITLY states (since at least 2008) that if they are sold, your info is among the assets that would be transferred.
B&N is doing nothing wrong here.
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B&N is doing nothing wrong here.
They may not be doing something illegal, but make no bones about it; it IS wrong.
bankruptcy creditors (Score:5, Interesting)
This kind of decision would turn every (former) Border's customer into a potential creditor in the bankruptcy proceeding, since it becomes a cost and damage to that customer if the privacy terms already agreed to are changed. Imagine if even 1 person of Border's (former) customer were to file a petition with the bankruptcy court to enter as a creditor.
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Oops, that should be 1 PERCENT of ...
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This kind of decision would turn every (former) Border's customer into a potential creditor in the bankruptcy proceeding, since it becomes a cost and damage to that customer if the privacy terms already agreed to are changed. Imagine if even 1 [percent] person of Border's (former) customer were to file a petition with the bankruptcy court to enter as a creditor.
Even if this, shall we say novel, concept of counting you as a creditor based on some implied contract in the privacy terms actually flew with the court (I doubt it, but I'm humoring you) the whole point of bankruptcy is that the debtor cannot honor all its creditors going forward. That's what it means to be asset-insolvent -- you owe creditors more than you are worth and so many of them, by necessity, don't get the obligations honored.
Since, even in your theory, you took an un-secured (no-collateral was of
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Imagine if even 1 person of Border's (former) customer were to file a petition with the bankruptcy court to enter as a creditor.
The court would come back with "Go away - your information might be worth about $10 to you, while these other creditors are owed millions."
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First, you would be an unsecured creditor. Second, you'd have to address the valuation of your claim. Third Litigation of that claim would be expensive. F
That's awesome! (Score:5, Informative)
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Along the lines of corporations are people. If someone has private pictures of you on their computer, and has promised never to show them to anyone else, but they die and someone buys their computer at an estate sale, you're sort of SOL.
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Someone should distribute the information for the entire management-level people at B&N. Phone, address, list of children, VISA numbers ... And, then of course, anybody with that information would say that they couldn't possibly be bound by any terms of use because they never made any agreement.
That might demonstrate to these peop
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Phone, address, list of children, VISA numbers
Yes, yes, NO, Yes.
Paint of an example for these people. Leave them voicemails about how important privacy is. Send them mail about how important privacy is. Use their credit card to buy yourself books from Barnes and Nobles (or buy books about privacy and ship the books to their addresses). But for the love of all that is good, leave their kids and families out of it.
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Actually, I definitely have to agree ... leave the kids out of it ... didn't think that through as I typed it.
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I think B&N is asserting the opposite of that, which
is Ardeaem's point.
Nope. If Borders bought a hard drive before they went bust, then that would be their property to be auctioned off. Similarly, the data Borders had about you is their property, which is to be auctioned off.
People are acting as though the data Borders collected belongs to them, rather than the company.
Hopefully this may help a few people realise the perils of letting random companies collect data about them.
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Not have to comply? (Score:3)
Not have to comply? They should be legally bind to it.
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It's bankruptcy, judges can get rid of contract classes as they see fit. Want it fixed you need a federal law (or patchwork of state laws) precluding the sale, lease or otherwise transfer of all personally identifying information without the consent of that person at the time of transfer (aka no fine print you allow this forever BS). Might want to tack on a company must expunge that same info opon request, or after n years of inactivity.
I wouldn't mind it for me, but I object anyway (Score:2)
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But that's bad business. Giving away a 10% discount when you can just take with no further consideration than the actual bankruptcy purchase price of the IP and the small cost of lawyers to persuasively make your case to the bankruptcy court? Completely unnecessary.
You're paying the lawyers anyway, and you'd have to buy the IP to even have the chance to ask every Joe Bagodonuts "Mother may I", so you might as well just do it and save yourself some money. Even if you have to retain a few lawyers to fend off
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.
what this really could mean. (Score:5, Interesting)
If the company buying the data at auction is not held to the same privacy standards as the original, this means that shell companies can be formed to gather information under strict nondisclosure, then intentionally fold and provide the information without restriction and in violation of the original disclosure agreement.
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If the company buying the data at auction is not held to the same privacy standards as the original, this means that shell companies can be formed to gather information under strict nondisclosure, then intentionally fold and provide the information without restriction and in violation of the original disclosure agreement.
And, uh, why were you handing personal information to fly-by-night shell companies?
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Facebook? When it first started, by many accounts sounded a lot like a fly by night company and people were giving them all kinds of personal information.
Yeah, and? A lot of them probably regret it t.
Even today I don't give them any information that I wouldn't want to see plastered all over the Internet.
Doesn't bother me (Score:2)
"This feature is temporarily unavailable." (Score:2)
Just tried to poison my account info. The response was "We're sorry. This feature is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later." It may be too late :/
flooz again (Score:2)
anyone remember Flooz? they did the same thing. and since people used it as a purchase buffer, i imagine t had juicier purchase history info.
Unfortunately, ample precedent... (Score:4, Interesting)
This became a well-settled area of law when lawsuits by Scientology drove the Cult Awareness Network into bankruptcy. The Scientologists were able to get a hold of CAN's confidential files in the BK, despite strenuous objections by many parties.
If those files can't be protected, I don't see your book purchasing habits at Borders being particularly sarconsact.
Even the chocolate balls... (Score:2)
sold at the counter? They know how much I love them now?
I promised I'd never let Barnes and Noble know how much I love those chocolate balls. That was between me and Borders!
I feel so violated.
Aren't there laws (Score:2)
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction (Score:2)
In unrelated news, I say customers should not buy anything from Barnes and Noble ever again.
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Boycotting every company that does something immoral or unethical doesn't leave you with much.
Unless one chooses to live as a hermit off the land out in the woods somewhere. For the rest of us, we just have to bend over and take it.
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Sellective buying (Score:4, Insightful)
B&N: Hi, we'd like to buy some parts of Borders.
Executor: Sure, which parts would you like?
B&N: Everything except the legal obligations, please.
Specious Argument (Score:2)
Re:R.I.P. Borders (Score:4, Funny)
It's a troubling sign of the times, I don't like seeing brick 'n' mortar book stores going belly up, I loved to spend a few hours on Saturday afternoons looking around.
An easy problem to solve.
1) Download several of these [google.com]
2) Set one of those photos as your computer's desktop image
3) Glance at your desktop background occasionally while you do your shopping at Amazon.com [amazon.com]
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er... so, what are some good bargain book stores in the Lansing area? It seems like most of the ones I knew about are gone now.
(Oh, and it's interesting to see someone else on Slashdot from the Lansing area.)
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my thought when they announced borders was closing was more bewilderment how they lasted this long than anything else
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I always make purchases when I visit B&N... I browse the selection, scan the ISBN with my phone, and have the book shipped free via Amazon Prime!
This isn't strictly true anymore, but it used to be. Today, most of my book purchases are directly with the publishers that will sell me DRM-free digital copies or from used bookstores. B&N has done very badly with their online store in identifying the format of books and if they contain DRM or not. (They're not all epub)
Furthermore, as much as I really wa