Vendors suffer consumer wrath

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One in five US consumers quizzed by Ponemon Institutehttp://www.ponemon.org/ said they immediately terminated their accounts with vendors that lost their information. An additional 40 per cent polled by the organisation's National Survey on Data Security Breach Notification considered taking their business elsewhere after receiving notifications of information mishandling. The survey polled 9,000 consumers, 12 per cent of whom had received notices of information security breaches.

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This is definatley one way to make sure vendors who traffic/deal with confidential data can be made to heel.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11...breach_survey/

Its sad that it has to be such a costly thing, but its necessary if it helps the company significantly improve its security procedures.

My mother-in-law (in her 80's, lives in the country, doesn't understand the internet or identity theft) got a notification letter from a hospital in Hawaii recently. She had no idea what it meant. I tried to read and explain it to her. It did no good. She still firmly believes these people are accusing her of stealing information.

It had to do with a visit she made to the hospital about 10 years ago while on vacation. The hospital lost a hard drive that may have had her data on it.

"I didn't steal their hard drive," mom says.

"No one said you did," I says. "They are trying to tell you that they may have lost some information and you should check your credit reports and bank statements."

"But, I didn't steal anything," she says.

Go figure. I think the low number of people taking action is due to lack of understanding.