On 25 Feb 2001, at 16:44, SRE wrote:
> I just heard that email subscriber databases are being viewed as
> sellable "assets" in bankruptcy proceedings... the court-appointed
> trustee is actually selling things in violation of the bankrupt
> company's privacy policy.
This is a fascinating problem, and not really all that new. Customer
information, contact information and other such "information" has always
been considered a part of a company's assets [you've probably heard about
one doctor "selling his practice" to another or one doctor taking over
the practice of another]. Most of the time you don't even notice [e.g.,
if the owner of a magazine changes, you just keep receiving it just like
normal and don't even really think that your customer-info just got sold
from one company to another -- My bank branch is closing, and is about to
be re-opened as a branch of a different bank; the new bank has already
contacted me and made clear that if I do nothing [i.e., this is an
*opt*out* situation] my accounts will be transferred to similar accounts
at the new bank. The question is not the convenience of the changeover
[yes, I'd rather have the nearby-branch than the same-logo-on-my-checks]
but rather than the new bank *obtained* all that info about me that I"d
have assumed/hoped that the banking laws would have held confidential...
but I gather that this kind of chageover is SOP [and indeed, no one
around here is complaining].
There's a subtle legal issue that I'm not sure of, but I guess is clear
just by observation: which is that the particular policies of a business
cease to have effect when the company ceases to exist. And so the
distribution of its assets [and no need for quotes around it: unless
you're real new to these sorts of things and/or really naive, that kind
of customer info *IS* an asset of the company] can actually proceed in
violation of the former-company's privacy policy. It is possible, I
guess, that the privacy policy would have held, even beyond the life of
the company [thereby requiring that such info be destroyed, in accordance
with the company policy, rather than distributed to creditors or
whoever]. OTOH, bankruptcy courts take a dim view of company policies
that destroy assets that could have been used to defray the losses of the
company's creditors, so perhaps that takes precendence [imagine a company
policy that says that no one will ever get possession of the building the
company is in.. do you really suppose that the courts/creditors would
raze the building rather than selling it to pay off the company's debts?]
[not to mention that company "policies" aren't legally binding, in that
they're almost all written so that the company can change them
unilaterally whenever it chooses to, often retroactively and often
without the requirement that current-customers be notified [there are
exceptions, e.g., for changes in insurance policies and other financial
kinds of things]
A different question is why net-folk would think that net-customer-
information would be any different from all the other 'information' that
is, and generally always has been, considered part of a company's assets
and somehow have to be special and inviolate...
/Bernie\
--
Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Pearisburg, VA
--> Too many people, too few sheep <--
