Macy’s Cites Privacy In Fighting D.A.’s CRM, POS Subpoena
Written by Evan SchumanApril 8th, 2009
Fighting a subpoena for CRM and POS data from the Los Angeles District Attorney, Macy's attorneys are arguing that privacy expectations prevent them from revealing the names of their customers who purchased children's jewelry made with potentially toxic lead. The D.A. argues that it needs the names so that the consumers can be contacted to try and stop the health threat.
The case raises many critical retail IT issues, including how private—or proprietary—the courts should consider data, including purchase histories from CRM/loyalty and POS payment files. Beyond privacy issues, such subpoenas could force retailers to publicly reveal that they are collecting and saving a lot more information than they want to disclose. There are also PCI implications, where a merchant could theoretically be shown to be saving prohibited payment card data.
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2 Comments | Read Macy’s Cites Privacy In Fighting D.A.’s CRM, POS Subpoena
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Our Comment SPAM system is getting very aggressive these days and has been blocking legitimate comments. If you post a comment and don't see it appear within 2 hours or so, can you please send a heads-up to customer-service@storefrontbacktalk? Ideally, please include the time you posted the comment. That will allow us to try and hunt for it. Thanks! P.S. We're working on fixing the system, but we don't want to lose any valuable comments in the meantime.
-Ed
April 10th, 2009 at 1:34 am
This situation shows the arrogance of this New York based company. They obviously have zero concern for the welfare of their customers children.
They could show concern and possibly defuse much of the problem by notifying as many customers as possible on their own (while still keeping names private).
My wife and I refuse to shop at Macys for 2 reasons. The 2nd may be part of their problem in this case.
1) They show East coast styles. We live on the West coast.
2) Their customer retention record keeping is shoddy. They took over our local chain department store in 1994. Closed it, rebuilt, and opened in 1996. We went in to buy a gift. We were told they canceled our credit card and destroyed the records because we had not shopped there for 2 years. I pointed out that they had closed the store for 2 years. That was the problem. They said “It makes no difference. You have to reapply.” Pure arrogance! Since 1996 we have found other places very willing to work for our business.
Back to the situation with the DA. The fact that they destroy records after a relatively short period of time may be their problem. It could be that the the further it goes the more they will have to reveal about shoddy practices. -Or it could just be arrogance.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Well I used to work there and I thought that you had to use a card within one year (not two) in order to keep an account active during any closures. Ultimately it is helpful for us to re-familiarize ourselves with the terms of any credit cards we use in order to prevent an easily avoidable problem such as this one from occurring. I do think that the measure is one that is in place to help prevent abuse of inactive accounts. And if someone had gotten a hold of your info during that closure and had run up a big bill you might have alternatively wondered why they would leave unused accounts active when they are known to be targets of identity theft criminals. So perhaps the assumptions about arrogance are misplaced as I don’t think that has anything at all to do with the decision to do whatever is within their ability to do to protect targeted account.