Ziff Davis to Pay After Online Security Breach
About 50 consumers will each receive a payment of $500 after their credit card information was exposed via a privacy breach on Ziff Davis Media’s Web site.
New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced the multistate agreement with the high-tech publisher yesterday. A New York-led investigation stemmed from a magazine promotion Ziff Davis ran online last November. According to the AG’s office, insufficient privacy controls led to a file of approximately 12,000 subscription orders for Electronic Gaming Monthly to be accessed by anyone surfing the Internet. Personal data was exposed, including credit card information, which resulted in some subscribers becoming victims of identity theft.
The settlement requires Ziff Davis to pay $500 to each of the approximately 50 consumers who provided credit card information while the data was exposed, regardless of whether they incurred fraudulent charges.
The AG’s office reported that Ziff Davis was made aware of the problem by subscribers who had been alerted by Web-surfing “good Samaritans.”
