Thursday, March 24, 2005

ChoicePoint still under fire, from all sides

(Sorry for the light blogging in the last day or so. I was in Newfoundland for a commercialization seminar.)

ChoicePoint is continuing to come under fire for a number of reasons ...

Wired news is running a story on alleged problems with their background checks:

Wired News: ChoicePoint's Checks Under Fire:

"As data broker ChoicePoint wrestles with the fallout from the sale of personal data to identity thieves and an investigation into two executives' sale of company stock, it faces questions on another front: its background-checking services.

Several lawsuits and consumer complaints in the last few years have accused ChoicePoint of providing inaccurate and out-of-date information in its criminal background reports, resulting in unfair job losses for applicants...."

Thanks to Privacy Digest for the link.

I expect there'll be some fuss about the company raising the CEO's bonus from $1.5M to $1.8M:

News from The Associated Press:

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- ChoicePoint Inc., which sells consumer data and recently acknowledged a major security breach, raised its top executive's 2004 bonus to $1.8 million from $1.5 million a year before, according to a regulatory filing Wednesday...."

And execs are being investigated for stock sales before the privacy incident was made public:

SEC investigating ChoicePoint stock sales:

"MAR. 4 8:13 A.M. ET Data collector ChoicePoint Inc. announced the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating stock sales by its top two executives. The company also said it will also stop selling personal information about consumers to small businesses...."

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