Identity Theft & Data Privacy

A statistic states that someone gets their identity stolen every 3 seconds in the United States and the problem is only growing. With most of our information being stored online and people getting careless when throwing away important documents it’s becoming increasingly easier for people to find information and steal an identity.

One story of an identity left ring in Dallas was actually solved due to the leader of the groups foolishness. He went to a night club one night and caught a cab back to his hotel and when he got out of the cab he fought with the cab driver, stole $40, kicked him and then ran inside to his room where the police followed him and found stacks of money and fraudulent paperwork along with stolen identities and peoples personal info and social security numbers. The group had been getting by using stolen identities and credit card info to pay for their hotels and everything else they were spending money on. They also traded stolen info with a group in Cincinnati so they could each have more info. They stole millions of dollars and their main form of stealing was filing false tax forms to get the refund checks. In total they stole more than 250 identities and one of the women were only sentenced to 5 years in prison.

-Mare

The Cloud-Safe or No?

Pretty much everyone has heard of, or even seen, the hundreds of nude photographs leaked of

Hollywood celebrities, such as Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton. What happened? Hackers were able to get their hands onto the pictures from Apple’s Cloud. Apparently they were able to access personal accounts by exploiting a security weakness in an Apple service. People argue that it is a “flagrant violation of privacy” and the FBI and Apple are looking into how these photos were stolen. This past Tuesday Apple released a statement saying “None of the cases we have investigated have resulted from any breach in any of Apple’s systems including iCloud of Find my iPhone.” The Apple spokeswoman, Nat Kerris also stated "We take user privacy very seriously and are actively investigating this report.” I feel like they have been doing so much investigating without any information. Personally, I believe that there are skilled hackers out there who are capable of getting in and seeing anything, so if you don’t want the public to know or see anything, think before you do! The internet is a very scary place!

-Chatty Charlie

Data privacy is a company's most valuable asset. Additionally the consumers' personal data is the greatest potential vulnerability. Fitbit, a health-tracking-device company, is under scrutiny. Fitbit first had a privacy scare in 2011; the company accidently-shared users' sexual activity online. The frenzy caused Fitbit to change their users' privacy profile default quickly to private.

Currently, the company collects health information exercise routines, geolocation, and sleep patterns. While this does not sound alarming – this information could be sold to third parties and presumably have their clients unfairly discriminated. Senator Chuck Schumer believing with health tracking devices becoming is attacking Fitbit mainstream: Apple Watch and Healthkit, minimal laws are against the selling of health-data.In order to protect their brand, Fitbit immediately released a statement to their consumers that their privacy had not been infringed upon, shared and never will be. Additionally they adjusted their company's privacy policy for additional comfort to their consumers.  A company's reputation can be destroyed with the breach of data.

-Mary

Holiday shopping is the best part of the year, shoppers patiently waiting to purchase their items during Black Friday. Unfortunately, when you are swiping your card you feel secure about the transaction until Target announces they have found a breach. 

 Mid-December 2013 Target found a breach within their system at which the hackers had gained access to their guess credit and debit card information.  The company was able to stop the breach and avoid further damage. Approximately 70 million individuals were affected and 40 million credit and debit card accounts may have been impacted. Not only were financial information taken, guests names, mailing and email address along with phone numbers were taken.  So how did they do this?  The hackers gained access to the data that is stored on the magnetic stripe on the back of the credit cards.  Target mentions they have contained and have the highest investigators looking into this.  But regardless you are not safe when you are using your debit/credit cards.

-KeAnna

“The wearable electronics market of which health/fitness trackers are about 61% will represent at least $2 billion in revenue worldwide by 2018” Fitness bands are great.

We love tracking our steps and the calories we burn throughout the day. But we never really think about where all the data that Nike, Jawbone, and Fitbit have on the way we walk, run and live.The Federal Trade Commission is concerned about brands giving out your personal fitness data. Companies would die for the valuable information of health, sleep, and location collected on these devices. Even if these brands are not selling your data, the social-media aspects of these systems allow other people to view your profile and statistics. It is scary knowing that these fitness tracking companies can collect and sell personal data without the consumer’s consent (although they are denying it now). This data is so detailed that a company could accurately guess a person’s credit rating from the information, and their unique manner of walking, all from personal health information such as weight and blood pressure. Personal health data should be just that, personal.

-Shani

Sink or Swim: Successful vs. Unsuccessful Businesses Overseas

Often when people assess how successful a business is they don’t think much past their own home country. We see businesses thriving around the corner from our homes and think how great they must be, however many companies that thrive in one country may completely fail in another. For example, Starbucks, easily the worlds biggest coffee company thrives in dozens of countries but completely failed in one country in particular.

When Starbucks made their move into Australia they found it hard to compete with small local coffee shops. Many Australians preferred the homey and boutique feeling of the small coffee shops and liked the wider variety of roasts and coffees. They said Starbucks wasn’t “creative” with their drinks and they preferred to go somewhere they could really connect with their baristas instead of feeling like they were in a giant conglomerate store.

-Mare

There are many stores that do very well in some countries but fail in others because of different cultural factors such as religion and family values. One of these stores would be Walmart. It is said to be the predominant retailer in the world, with up to 35 million shoppers a day. However, there are several countries Walmart has failed to succeed in, including India, Russia, Germany, and South Korea. Issues in India had to do with not having appropriate licenses required to sell certain products and for allegedly violating foreign retail investment rules. Walmart failed in Russia because it has a population of about 140 million people, but not a lot of retail development, some people even believe that Walmart didn’t have a strong enough presence and were too slow starting to manage its entry into Russian retail. In Germany, customers complained about the Walmart employees having to handle their groceries at the check-out line and many Europeans prefer to shop at local markets anyways. In South Korea, individuals prefer to spend their money on food and drinks and Walmart marketed items such as electronics, so they weren’t as interested as Americans are. This just goes to show that even one of the world’s most powerful retailers can’t overcome certain obstacles, especially when it comes to people of different cultures.

-Chatty Charlie

The American market likes the ability to purchase items easily and quickly. Sometimes the comments and/or ratings of other influence our choice to purchase or not.

America’s largest ecommerce site eBay struggled to succeed using the American buying tactics in the Chinese online market. The Chinese customers were opposed to hearing the opinion of other buyers – instead wanted to hear from the seller themselves. With the lack of one-to-one communication the Chinese consumer was unable to develop trust with the seller. eBay was incapable to be successful.

-Mary

In today’s society electronics have become part of our daily lives.  Best Buy being the largest retailer to sell a variety of electronics and entertainment this big box store may appeal to Americans but has struggled to make headway in foreign markets such as Europe and China.  The big box failed in its European efforts through poor marketing strategy and failing to notice that Europeans prefer smaller shops rather than large box stores.

In addition being in the European culture Best Buy was unsuccessful in reaching the demographic by not being effective to help consumers identify with a product or service.  Furthermore unlike American culture purchasing the newest products once it is released, Europeans only purchase a few times a year and from smaller stores as mentioned before.  Best buy failed in China due to their prices considering that the consumers are too cheap to purchase expensive products that they would rather purchase the same product from a local retailer. Therefore Best Buy is unable to be successful despite the popular products they carry. 

-KeAnna

Who wants to go to Europe to eat a cheeseburger? Apparently nobody.

When you travel you want to experience the culture of the natives. Disney is such an established and tourist central to American culture they believed they could produce the same effects in Europe, but Euro Disney was a failure.

Many Europeans visit Disney when they are in America so they were confident in its success in Europe.  But Europeans only visit these parks because they are in America and want the American experience. The park was 35 minutes outside of Paris. The idea was to create a complete experience- including guests staying in the hotels and eating all of their meals in the park. But the price of the Disney hotel was about the same price as some of the most expensive hotels in the heart of Paris, so naturally people chose the romanticism and culture of the city of Paris over the isolated American theme park. Disney tried to bring the American culture to Europe. This did not work because they were going against the European culture, trying to tell the natives that they cannot bring food into the park and have breakfast and wine, and were instead offered American food such as cheeseburgers. Disney missed the mark in recognizing the important cultural differences. Just because something is great in one culture does not mean it will transfer well to another.

-Shani