Dave & Buster’s Gets 20 Years In Gonzales Settlement
Written by Frank HayesDave & Buster’s will spend the next 20 years under the watchful eye of the FTC, according to a consent agreement finalized this month. The Federal Trade Commission accused the entertainment restaurant chain of failing to protect the credit and debit card numbers of 130,000 customers after Albert Gonzalez and his associates hacked into the company’s networks and stole their card numbers.
The FTC’s probe found that D&B “engaged in a number of practices that, taken together, failed to provide reasonable and appropriate security for personal information on its computer networks.”
Specifically, the FTC concluded that Dave & Buster’s failed to:
Interestingly enough, different sets of federal employees (FTC investigators, Justice Department and U.S. Attorney prosecutors, and three different federal judges) looking at this case from very different vantage points all arrived at roughly the same figure: 20 years. Gonzalez was sentenced to 20 years and a day by the federal judges, while Dave & Buster’s has been ordered to spend the next 20 years, until May 2030, making compliance reports back to the FTC.
How circular: The feds are sharply inconveniencing both the victim and the perpetrator for the same 20 years. And who says the law doesn’t have a sense of humor—and of the absurd.
The mobile challenge is less about supporting the devices and more about having the skill and tenacity to integrate the ordering app into the multitude of POS networks/software iterations. 
-Dan Stiel