Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Identity theft with a twist

It sounds like something out of a nightmare: "Girl finds dead mother hawking cure-all on Facebook." Helen Breimer died 9 months ago of cancer and her Facebook account was hacked to promote a "miracle cure-all" colon cleanser. The account has since been shut down but this is just one example of many of how commonplace identity theft is becoming.

The main point that I got out of this article was that this was just one case of many. Nothing particularly different or important happened in this case but it makes for a good story.

On the contrary dear readers, something important did happen. Shelby Breimer found her deceased mother's profile active and touting the importance of this "miracle" drug. The company, Teloxys Technologies Ltd, has yet to apologize and did not remove the content on its own and Facebook hasn't returned any of Shelby's calls.

The biggest question, for me anyway, would be how to seek justice. A person's privacy has been violated here and no one seems to be willing to do anything about it. How well does this reflect on Facebook and why do none of the news stories seem to have picked up on this?

No comments: