FTC Accuses LifeLock of False Advertising Again 54
An anonymous reader writes: You may remember LifeLock — it's the identity protection company whose CEO published his social security number and dared people to steal his identity. Predictably, 13 different people succeeded. LifeLock was later sued for deceptive marketing practices, and eventually settled with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to the tune of $12 million. Part of that settlement, of course, required that they refrain from misrepresenting their services in the future. Now, the FTC is taking action against them again, saying they failed to live up to that promise. The FTC claims (PDF) LifeLock falsely advertised that it "protected consumers' sensitive data with the same high-level safeguards as financial institutions" and also failed build systems to protect the data they held.
Thats kinda strange (Score:3, Interesting)
LifeLock was later sued for deceptive marketing practices
Marketing by nature is deceptive . You never sell what you sell but you create the need ( more often than not artificial) for people . How many car advertisements actually talk about the car?
What marketing actually is (Score:5, Interesting)
Marketing by nature is deceptive
Not true. Marketing done well is VERY honest with customers. You can lie in marketing but that doesn't mean marketing is nothing but lies. Marketing fundamentally is about creating and maintaining a relationship with a customer. It's not actually about selling the product - not directly anyway. You have a product and you are trying to find a way to communicate the existence and benefits of that product to others - that is marketing. Along side that you are communicating with potential customers about who you (the seller) are and what you are about. At its core that is all marketing is - developing relationships. You'll note that lying is no way required to do that and frankly it is largely counterproductive in the long run.
People don't buy Coca-cola because Coke Inc is lying to people about what it is and frankly they don't really need to lie about it. Sure they are selling flavored carbonated sugar water but they are also selling a brand which is intangible but clearly valuable to many people. Lying in marketing is kind of like a guy falsely claiming to be a doctor to pick up a girl in a bar. It might work but it isn't likely to last. While it is possible to lie in marketing and be successful for a time with it. But that does not mean that marketing is intrinsically deceptive.
Marketing is not the same thing as sales. Sales is the actual act of convincing someone to buy a product or service. Marketing is developing a relationship with a customer and an awareness of the product. Those things are related but are different stages in the process.
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Calling Marketing deceptive is the same kind of error as assuming any hacker is a criminal -- instead of its original noble meaning.
The same way Marketing can be used by evil corporations, it is used on a daily basis to let people know about new technologies and even, maybe surprisingly, to avoid that people mistakenly buy one's product.
Sjibe's post is pretty much 100% accurate; heck, even the article's title says "false advertising" which means it's not just about advertising -- supposedly true -- but abou
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lol u mad
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Not true. Marketing done well is VERY honest with customers. You can lie in marketing but that doesn't mean marketing is nothing but lies
ha ha ha
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For Coke, the brand is about the associations of flavor and the positive experiences you've had drinking the product which really had nothing to do with the product. Also quality... if you drink it, there isn't bad crap in the bottle. But come on, when you get down to it the whole brand thing can get really overblown with nonsense.
Marketing may not be all lies, but if a brand is mostly about sentiment and not reality, the market
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> Marketing may not be all lies, but if a brand is mostly about sentiment and not reality
Whoa. It seems we have different concepts about reality! Sentiment is not fictional like a ghost or a werewolf. Abstract things may not be concrete, but they are real. For an example, see a son who loves his mother: the love is just a sentiment -- and it's real nonetheless.
> the marketer rarely makes it LESS sentimental.
Actually, sometimes advertising appeals to our rationality and can even be deceptive by doing s
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Marketing done well is VERY honest with customers. You can lie in marketing but that doesn't mean marketing is nothing but lies.
LOL, now THAT'S funny! Thanks for the chuckle, sjbe.
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People don't buy Coca-cola because Coke Inc is lying to people about what it is and frankly they don't really need to lie about it.
Bullshit. If you really believe that, you know less than half as much as you think you do about marketing and advertising. Coke runs plenty of advertising which is intended solely to improve the image of their brand. If they deserved a positive image, they wouldn't have to run "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" song ads. Factual advertising would be printing a list of ingredients on a poster and slapping it on the wall. Instead they've come up with all this "Coke is It" crap, if that's not a lie then I don'
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Marketing by nature is deceptive
Not true.
OK, would it help if we changed that to 99% of marketing is deceptive by nature.
For every marketing campaign that is honest, there are 99 that aren't. I cant even think of a marketing campaign that is global and honest. Every one tries to convey an impression that isn't true. Axe/Lynx deodorants wont make you irresistible to the opposite sex, drinking coke doesn't mean you're doing wacky things with attractive friends, every airline advertises flying as a pleasant experience in half empty cabins, not bei
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"You never sell what you sell but you create the need ( more often than not artificial) for people."
That isn't even English, so I'm not sure what you're trying to say. "You never sell what you sell" - eh?
Most products that people buy are products that they need or want, and the purpose of marketing is to try to make them choose one brand or supplier of that product over another. Marketing doesn't make you need food, or a phone, or a car, or a bank account, or entertainment.
Now most maketing will tend to hi
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That naturally put Life Lock on the prosecutors' radar. Then, instead of cleaning up their act, the misleading ads continued.
This is precisely what law enforcement is supposed to be doing. Lifelock? Well, they're malevolent, incompetent, or both.
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Who needs Lifelock? (Score:2)
With all the personal data being stolen every which way, there is so much free credit monitoring being offered to consumers by companies that if you haven't already been offered some, then you must live in a cave and not need any.
Re:Who needs Lifelock? (Score:4, Insightful)
Providing SS numbers, credit card numbers, bank info and personal info to Lifelock actually may make a person less safe.
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Providing SS numbers, credit card numbers, bank info and personal info to Lifelock actually may make a person less safe
Ya think? How about WHEN Lifelock gets hacked, and ALL of your data, you *trusted* to Lifelock is up for sale on one of those "darknet" sites.. With all these MUCH larger companies getting hacked left and right, WHY would you trust Lifelock with your private data, so they can ---ahem-- protect you?? Ever since their
CEO put his social security number on their commercials, and immediately got it compromised, I've considered Lifelock a bad joke. I've always wondered what that stupid sounding disclaimer they qu
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My personal data was stolen (from where, I never found out). Someone got my name, address, DOB, and SSN and opened a credit card in my name. Through sheer luck, they paid for rush delivery of the card BEFORE changing the address and the card wound up at my house. Otherwise, I would have found out about it when the collections agency beat down my door to get the $5,000+ that "I" owed them.
If you think your personal information has been compromised (or if you want to play it safe), Lifelock is not the tool
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Lifelock lost any real value it may have had when they were ordered to stop filing repeated fraud-alerts on the customer's behalf as the core of their service, thanks to the FTC! It's a service one can provide for themselves if they wish to be troubled to do so every 90 days. Credit freeze may be vastly more effective for anyone that actually cares to invest the effort.
One tip I have for anyone setting fraud-alerts in hopes they will contract you about new credit issues is to make sure you update your phone
Many will say that this is bad advice but (Score:4, Insightful)
Back in 2000 the company I worked for "Accidentally" put everyones info (HR Database) on the public FTP site. Including Bank account info, all the security questions, ss#, salaries, etc.
At that time I looked into "Protecting" myself from identity theft and realized there was an easy solution.
1) Run my credit into the ground. Someone stealing an identity does not want to clean up your credit. They want an easy target.
2) Pay off all my debts. Believe it or not, paying off your debts without creating new ones lowers your credit score.
3) Live off what I make! No credit cards, no loans, no credit.
Now, 15 years later, I have 4 cars, a boat, 12.5 acres in the country, and a house. I got the home loan before I did all of this and it is the only debt I have left. The rest was saved for and I paid cash for them.
It is amazing how much cash you have when you are not loosing 12%, 15%, or 25%, to interest on loan payments.
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You must be a terrorist or have accumulated all that wealth through selling drugs. Law enforcement will be around shortly to sieze your assets.
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And the only people that are paying 12%, 15%, or 25% on a loan or credit card payment are the people that have previously driven their credit into the ground and kept it there because they don't know how to maintain their finances.
If indeed you paid off all your debts 15 years ago after driving your credit into the ground and are still paying for your house, you likely have average credit. You may not
Re:Many will say that this is bad advice but (Score:5, Funny)
Back in 2000 the company I worked for "Accidentally"
Terrible name for a company.
Unless it's an emergency dentist. Chipped a tooth? Call Acci-dentally on 0800-OWMYMOUF
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Yeah, that. Can't get a mortgage with no credit. Kind of the flaw in your plan. Cars, boats, and unimproved rural land can certainly all be paid for in cash by someone in the middle class, if they have the time and willpower. Houses? Only if you have a very particular set of skills.
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1) Run my credit into the ground. Someone stealing an identity does not want to clean up your credit. They want an easy target.
DOES NOT WORK, because of credit scams. The way it worked in my case was that a Mexican with a car dealership in a town with corrupt courts (Nevada City, CA) gave credit personally to someone he knew didn't deserve it, who defaulted on the loan. That person was using my name and SSN. Their "evidence" of SSN was a check cashing card with the SSN written on it. Then he sold it to a corrupt collection agency in the same town. Now they're harassing me. They have the documentation in hand to see that the loan wa
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But the law says that if you don't appear the plaintiff need not offer any evidence whatsoever as to the debt and once they have a judgement against you it is legally a debt.
HAHAHAHAHA you think you're educating people, but you're really ignorant. The first I heard of this debt was a collections agency contacting me with a judgement against me. I was never offered the opportunity to appear.
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In general, I do agree with you about paying off your debts and not overextending yourself. I have credit car
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Didn't this CEO get his identity stolen 13 times?? (Score:1)
http://www.wired.com/2010/05/l... [wired.com]
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Ok, I understand nobody on /. will RTFA, but to not even read the first sentence of the summary?