Nathan's Occasional Blog

You realize you’re blaming Mastercard for the sins of the card issuer? Two different entities.
[-annonymous commenter]

I totally understand that.  BUT, this being part humor and part serious, and being written by a newspaper columnist I can forgive that oversite.  I mean for one thing, I’d imagine the newspaper’s advertisers (there has to be credit issuers amongst the list) would be pissed for getting singled out more than they already are in the article.  Check out the middle of the article:

Just a few weeks ago, Citigroup revealed that it lost data on 4 million customers at its CitiFinancial unit.

Bank of America lost records on 1.2 million customers. Then there’s the security breaches at the credit bureau ChoicePoint and the theft of customer credit card and purchase data at more than 100 of Retail Ventures’ DSW Shoe Warehouse stores.

As for you, MasterCard, you said that working with law enforcement you identified breaches at CardSystems Solutions in Tucson, Ariz.

Besides, I liked the general message being sent.  Do you realize that by using credit cards we all agree to a contract that can be ammended by the OTHER party at any time and in any way?  If that went under a legal review at my office they’d have a cow.  Sure would be nice to have all these companies we “entrust” with our private information be held to some sort of liability for leaking all our personal information.  I’d love to limit our exposure to this stupit stuff as much as possible … who knows if this will ever happen though.