A truly clueless judge has set an incredibly dangerous precedent by ordering a man's Gmail account closed because he accidentally received a misaddressed e-mail sent by a bank!
After a Rocky Mountain Bank employee sent a spreadsheet full of customers' personal data to a random Gmail account holder, the bank wanted the account closed - why, no one knows - but Google refused to comply without a court order. The Rocky Mountain Bank got a court order, decreeing the account must be closed, from U.S. District Court Judge James Ware! Again, no one knows why.
Apparently, U.S. District Court Judge James Ware is a clueless dolt. What, exactly, does closing an innocent man's e-mail account accomplish and how does it protect the bank? It may actually violate a slew of privacy laws, though this is not certain yet. One thing that is certain: this ruling could set a terrible precedent which companies of all stripe, and possibly even individuals, could abuse.
If I understand the ruling, I could send a file containing personal information to any e-mail account I wish, then demand its closing! And while targeting an e-mail account for closing by this means is one thing, the Rocky Mountain Bank employee in the above suit sent the information to a random account! All of our e-mail accounts are now threatened!
Anyone's e-mail account could be demanded closed - at random!
© C Harris Lynn, 2009
A worm's-eye view of the Web.
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2 comments:
This just blows my mind. I'm sorry, but Rocky Mountain Bank was in the wrong here. Totally in the wrong. They should have reprimanded their employee instead. I would have to question as to WHY did the employee have to email ANYONE a list of sensitive information? Do people NOT know or realize that emailing from one address to another is NOT safe or confidential as we are lead to believe. Emails can be intercepted along the route by hackers and those who use script programs to spy on mail servers and such.
I sincerely hope that Rocky Mountain Bank customers have heard about this story and hope that they close their accounts at Rocky Mountain Bank PRONTO and find another bank to do business at. Rocky Mountain Bank needs to take responsibility of their own f**k up instead of blaming someone else or trying to pretend that a criminal phantom exists when it doesn't.
Just who the hell does Rocky Mountain Bank think they are to take away someone's right to have an email account? Corporations like them seriously disgust me. I hope that whoever the person is that had their email account taken away, I hope that person sues the living sh** out of Rocky Mountain Bank AND Google.
Though I am certainly no fan of online monopoly, Google, I will grant them this much: they refused to close the guy's account until this dipshit judge issued a court order.
But you couldn't be more on the money, here. Imagine this guy, who probably didn't even realize he got this stupid document (prolly went straight to his spam folder), trying to login one day and being told, "We had to shut your account because you received some mail."
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