Yanks Leak Personal Info On Season Ticket Holders
Posted by Steve L. on April 27th, 2011 · Comments (23)
I really hope the MSM picks up this story and the Yankees get nailed to a cross for it.
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Unless the distribution was carried out with malicious intent then I don’t really see why the Yankees should “get nailed to a cross for” this. Accidents will happen. It’s unfortunate and regrettable but there’s no evidence at this time to suggest that this was anything more than a stupid mistake on the part of one employee.
If the employee gets fired, I suppose it would be some measure of justice for the fans affected by his or her mistake. But I don’t really see how the entire Yankee organization failed here.
@ MJ Recanati:
Distributing or giving access to personal/private information, whether malicious or not, and not having a way of protecting that information opens you for all sorts of liable action.
Look at the stuff going on with Playstation 3. If you do business with an entity, then you should expect that entity to do everything possible to protect your personal information.
Garcia wrote:
Of course, I couldn’t agree more. But that being said, mistakes do happen sometimes.
@ MJ Recanati:
When it comes to stuff like this, then it usually has nothing to do with mistakes but a lot to do with negligence. If you know employees are transmitting personal customer information via email, then at the very least you can have a policy where all sensitive information be password protected and encrypted, but still not a good way of doing work.
This isn’t your local deli or some mom and pop shop, this is the New York Yankees. They must have better methods in place.
MJ Recanati wrote:
MJ – if MasterCard called you up and said “Hi, this is Joe from MasterCard. I meant to send out some pictures of my dog to everyone in my personal contact list. But, instead, I attached a work XLS that contained the name, SSN, address, mother’s maiden name, and account numbers for hundreds of card holders. It was a few hundred members on the list. You were one of them. SO, I wanted to call you and say ‘Whoops. My bad! and offer that I’m pretty sure the 200 people in my contact list will do the right thing and delete the file.”
Really, MJ, you get this phone call and your reaction would be “Hey, mistakes do happen”?
May be an oversimplification but if Sony has gotten ripped to shreds due to their latest privacy issue, I wouldn’t see why the Yankees shouldn’t.
I’m sorry, in 2011, there is no need for excel spreadsheets with people’s personal information, let alone for them to be e-mailed around. Are the Yankees too cheap to get some software built to facilitate the same function? No? What about setting up a VPN?
This is absurd.
@ Steve Lombardi:
You’re in there, Steve. But it not as bad as you’re saying. I only know where you sit, where you live, your email, and phone number.
@ James:
Thanks. And, related, I just got this email from the Yankees, one hour ago:
Dear Yankees Season Ticket Licensee,
We are writing to inform you about an accidental electronic distribution of information that you have previously supplied to the New York Yankees.
Monday evening, April 25, 2011 an employee of the Yankees sent an e-mail to several hundred Yankees Season Ticket Licensees. The e-mail mistakenly attached an internal Yankees spreadsheet that listed the following information associated with your New York Yankees account:
· Your name, and the address, phone number(s), fax number, and e-mail address that you previously provided to the Yankees
· Your seat numbers, Yankees account number, Yankees account representative name, and the ticket package code associated with your account
NO OTHER INFORMATION WAS INCLUDED IN THE DOCUMENT THAT WAS ACCIDENTALLY ATTACHED TO THE APRIL 25TH E-MAIL. THE DOCUMENT DID NOT INCLUDE ANY BIRTH DATES, SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS, CREDIT CARD DATA, BANKING DATA, OR ANY OTHER PERSONAL OR FINANCIAL INFORMATION.
Please note, immediately upon learning of the accidental attachment of the internal spreadsheet, remedial measures were undertaken so as to assure that a similar incident could not happen again.
The Yankees deeply regret this incident, and any inconvenience that it might cause.
Still pisses me off that my address was given out. Not that it could not be obtained with a little work on the internet. But, why make it easy?
Corey Italiano wrote:
As a former MasterCard employee, even if you do have a VPN set up, it doesn’t mean that merchants/customers will use it. Ask me how I know?
Steve Lombardi wrote:
You’d be lucky if you get a call.
@ Steve Lombardi:
At least you used a spam email account. I made the mistake of giving them a personal one that I’ve used for ten years without spam.
I did however use my Google voice number.
Know what is REALLY starting to piss me off? This happened on MONDAY night, TWO DAYS AGO, and they just sent the email about it NOW, after the story started to break all over the internet? TWO DAYS it took them to notify me? That’s BS.
To be fair, I think they should now post the names, home addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of every member of the Yankees organization to Yankees.com – - if it’s really not a big deal that this type of information is made public by accident.
Yes, I’m kidding…sort of.
@ Steve Lombardi:
To be fair, they may not have known. I got the email then promptly deleted it. The subject line was about a newsletter and I thought the attachment was that.
Steve Lombardi wrote:
Gotta save face. The way it works is “no harm, no foul.” Had no one said anything, this would’ve been swept under the rug.
Steve Lombardi wrote:
I’m not saying you don’t have a right to be pissed off. If it happened to me, I’d be upset too.
But there’s a difference between my own anger and believing that the entire organization should be crucified. Shit happens. It’s not fun when that shit happens to you but it’s not like they did it on purpose (as far as we can tell).
@ MJ Recanati: There could be nasty fall out from this.
There were 20,000+ names on the file. I have to imagine that some of them are high profile.
Let’s say, for example, one of them was Andy Rooney.
And, one of the people who got the file was Sonny Sam, a Yankees bleacher season ticket holder who also has a history of mental illness and violence. Oh, and, by the way, Sonny watches 60 minutes every week because he cannot stand Andy Rooney. He curses at Rooney from the minute he shows up on TV until way past 60 minutes is over.
Well, now, thanks to the Yankees, good ol’ Sonny knows Rooney’s email address, phone number and home address. And, on top of that, Sonny knows exactly where Andy sits when he attends Yankeees games.
Where do you think this one is going – and is going to end?
MJ Recanati wrote:
When I said “Yankees,” I didn’t mean that entire organization should be put on a cross – certainly not the players, coaches, consession workers, etc. More so, I meant the Stadium ticket administrative personnel and the team owners, president, COO, etc.
James wrote:
Fair point. I hope most deleted it. But, now that the story is out, even those who did are probably pulling the file from their trash bin.
@ Steve Lombardi:
I don’t know where it’s going to end and I don’t particularly care.
I’m not entirely sure why you’re fighting with me over my saying that mistakes happen. It was an unfortunate mistake — I’m not disagreeing with you one iota– but mistakes happen all the time.
Raf wrote:
Also, time is needed to draft a press release.
Raf wrote:
I’m surprised they didn’t go with Steinbrenner’s favorite oracle, Howard Rubenstein.