The American telecommunications company Comcast accidentally published the contact details of 200,000 customers in its own web directory. This list had their personally identifiable details such as names, addresses, and even their contact numbers. This violation is further compounded by the fact that customers have paid a €5.50 monthly fee to keep their number unlisted in phone and web directories. These contact details were released by Xfinity, a Comcast company, in November of last year, but customers were not informed of the incident until January and February after receiving letters from the company.
Comcast Privacy Breach
"We are working directly with our customers to resolve this issue and help fix it, and we are taking steps to prevent it from happening again," Comcast spokeswoman Leslie Oliver said in a statement. After realizing the error, Comcast has removed the service from SEO, which means it will no longer offer both published and unlisted services. Comcast has now offered €100 each to affected customers and to maintain their confidentiality, has offered a one-time number change service at no additional cost. Customers have complained that their contact details are published on the Internet through various directory services. They wrote on the company's official forum that the €100 credit might be useless because they will have to do business with multiple companies to get their numbers removed. This service has been particularly helpful to many law enforcement officers, judges, and victims of domestic violence, etc. because it helped them keep their contact details confidential. According to Comcast, the problem affected almost 2.2% of its 9 million voice customers. However, this is not the first time the company has dealt with such a problem. In 2015, Comcast had to pay €33 million to resolve a similar incident that occurred in early 2010. Via: DenverPost