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Business Fined Quarter of a Million for Not Securing Customer Data

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has fined game developer RockYou.com $250,000 for, among other things, failing to adequately secure their customers’ user data. While the FTC slammed Rock You for COPPA (the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act rule) violations, in part because RockYou collected information from children under the age of 13 without parental consent, the Feds made a point of noting that “the company’s security failures put users’ including children’s personal information at risk” while at the same time claiming that they had adequate security measures in place. Adequate security measures our foot! They stored their user data in plain – i.e. unencrypted – text! The FTC settlement and fine follows a 2 year investigation into the hacking of RockYou servers in 2009 which exposed the date of 32 million users.