Did Butterfly Labs (BFL) release all their customer's vitals into the wild?

[Phinnaeus Gage]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=325638.0

Unless paying a telemarketer, calling all their former and current customers, is not considered a third party, I stand corrected.

Our Privacy Promise

We do not sell information about you to a third party.
We do not share your information with anyone else for their marketing purposes.
We use your personal information only to help maintain the business relationship you have with us.

~TMIBTCITW

[dogie]

They can call their customers themselves, not illegal?

[Phinnaeus Gage]

They can call their customers themselves, not illegal?

It's been shown that the process is being conducted by a telemarketing firm not in-house, hence this thread.

[Paladin69]

I'm far more concerned with Benjamin Lawsky potentially knowing who all of BFL's customers are.

[jojo69]

the call center worker I spoke with had the complete dataset provided to BFL, including physical address

[darkmule]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=325638.0

Unless paying a telemarketer, calling all their former and current customers, is not considered a third party, I stand corrected.

Our Privacy Promise

We do not sell information about you to a third party.
We do not share your information with anyone else for their marketing purposes.
We use your personal information only to help maintain the business relationship you have with us.

~TMIBTCITW

God I hate defending BFL.  But this is actually entirely consistent with what they said and, incidentally, with federal law including the Do Not Call registry.

It is not selling information about you to a third party to pay a third party to call you.  It is providing them with information they need to do a job they hired them for.

It is not sharing your information with anyone else for THEIR marketing purposes if BFL provides them with your information to do a job that BFL hired them to do.

It is, in fact, using your personal information to "help maintain the business relationship" they have with you, if they give that list to a company they hired, so that that company can act as their agents to call up their "loyal customers" to try to sell them more shit.

Now, if randoms start calling you and could only have obtained your information from BFL, that's another matter.  But it's entirely legal for a company to telemarket you if you have a prior business relationship and haven't specifically asked them to stop.  It's just as legal for them to contract out and have someone else do the calls.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

This is a dirty little secret of rogue telemarketing firms. And it's
probably happening right under your nose.
 
In my opinion, it's downright fraud! Make sure the telemarketing firm you work with
NEVER sells your leads to another company. Get this in writing.
 
You see, a lot of telemarketing firms have you sign lengthy contracts, and when a list is
exhausted from repeated calls, they need a way to continually produce leads. What could
be easier than to take a campaign you paid for and give the leads to someone else?
 
This happens more often than you'd expect.

Legal or not, I don't believe many bitcoiners think kindly of having their vitals distributed to an unknown third party, especially by a Bitcoin entity that stated in their ToS that they wouldn't do such. I don't believe a single Bitcoin miner ever thought that one day they would be receiving a call from a telemarketer soliciting 20% off coupons, or whatever, safely assuming that such an occurrence would be über-slim, consider we're speaking about the belief systems of most bitcoiners.

[Roy Badami]

This is a dirty little secret of rogue telemarketing firms. And it's
probably happening right under your nose.
 
In my opinion, it's downright fraud! Make sure the telemarketing firm you work with
NEVER sells your leads to another company. Get this in writing.
 
You see, a lot of telemarketing firms have you sign lengthy contracts, and when a list is
exhausted from repeated calls, they need a way to continually produce leads. What could
be easier than to take a campaign you paid for and give the leads to someone else?
 
This happens more often than you'd expect.

Legal or not, I don't believe many bitcoiners think kindly of having their vitals distributed to an unknown third party, especially by a Bitcoin entity that stated in their ToS that they wouldn't do such. I don't believe a single Bitcoin miner ever thought that one day they would be receiving a call from a telemarketer soliciting 20% off coupons, or whatever, safely assuming that such an occurrence would be über-slim, consider we're speaking about the belief systems of most bitcoiners.

By your interpretation, it would be illegal for BFL to write your name on the shipping label because USPS is a third party.

Further, if they use a third party logistics company to package up and ship the products, they would have to give the names and shipping addresses to the logistics company - by your argument they can't do this.

In all these cases those are subcontractors, not third parties, by any common sense interpretation.

roy

[Phinnaeus Gage]

This is a dirty little secret of rogue telemarketing firms. And it's
probably happening right under your nose.
 
In my opinion, it's downright fraud! Make sure the telemarketing firm you work with
NEVER sells your leads to another company. Get this in writing.
 
You see, a lot of telemarketing firms have you sign lengthy contracts, and when a list is
exhausted from repeated calls, they need a way to continually produce leads. What could
be easier than to take a campaign you paid for and give the leads to someone else?
 
This happens more often than you'd expect.

Legal or not, I don't believe many bitcoiners think kindly of having their vitals distributed to an unknown third party, especially by a Bitcoin entity that stated in their ToS that they wouldn't do such. I don't believe a single Bitcoin miner ever thought that one day they would be receiving a call from a telemarketer soliciting 20% off coupons, or whatever, safely assuming that such an occurrence would be über-slim, consider we're speaking about the belief systems of most bitcoiners.

By your interpretation, it would be illegal for BFL to write your name on the shipping label because USPS is a third party.

Further, if they use a third party logistics company to package up and ship the products, they would have to give the names and shipping addresses to the logistics company - by your argument they can't do this.

In all these cases those are subcontractors, not third parties, by any common sense interpretation.

roy

To be clear, I'm not stating what took place was illegal, and the USPS analogy is a poor one, for there are federal regulations that must be adhere to, with same applying to all other major carriers. If such were never put in place, then the USPS, et al. would have ceased to exist decades ago, based on the privacy issue alone.

OTOH, if the entire shipping department was farmed out to Bob's Express Mail, or the like, then there would be issues if such wasn't fully disclosed beforehand. If one read BFL's ToS, most would be under the impression that their vitals would remain solely with BFL, not shared with ANY other entity, period.

[Syke]

To be clear, I'm not stating what took place was illegal, and the USPS analogy is a poor one, for there are federal regulations that must be adhere to, with same applying to all other major carriers. If such were never put in place, then the USPS, et al. would have ceased to exist decades ago, based on the privacy issue alone.

OTOH, if the entire shipping department was farmed out to Bob's Express Mail, or the like, then there would be issues if such wasn't fully disclosed beforehand. If one read BFL's ToS, most would be under the impression that their vitals would remain solely with BFL, not shared with ANY other entity, period.

You have to hand it to BFL's lawyers. They're really good at giving the impression of one thing, while actually saying the opposite. Honest Abe!

[Roy Badami]

OTOH, if the entire shipping department was farmed out to Bob's Express Mail, or the like, then there would be issues if such wasn't fully disclosed beforehand

No real world business decides in advance in an irrevocable way who will provide shipping logistics.  The real world is that businesses subcontract functions as necessary, and the identities of the contractors will change from time to time.

[Quix]

This is pretty standard, the information went to a contract company to use for a specific job. Almost all telemarketing calls are outsourced now. Butterfly Labs has done and is still doing some shady things but this is perfectly in line with standard business practices. I hate telemarketers too, but you're grasping at straws here.

[Bicknellski]

This is pretty standard, the information went to a contract company to use for a specific job. Almost all telemarketing calls are outsourced now. Butterfly Labs has done and is still doing some shady things but this is perfectly in line with standard business practices. I hate telemarketers too, but you're grasping at straws here.

The question would be...

did they "sell" their list to the telemarketing company and get "free" calls to all on the list? That would be outside the scope obviously... but there is no evidence of that. Having a company market for them is not illegal, nor is outside their TOS. They said they would not SELL your info for the use of a 3rd Party. They are using the company to market their weak assed vapourware bait and switch worthless coupons. The real illegality is the fact they are lying about the delivery dates and the fact they have NO working Monarch product. It is obviously FALSE advertizing and that is what should be reported to the BBB. They are wilfully doing this a 3rd time in as many products. FPGA, ASIC 1 to ASIC 2 they need to be shut down.

[jojo69]

the proof will be in the pudding, my phone and email have thus far been immune to spam

if that changes we got a war on our hands folks

[Inaba]

I've been privately speaking to Bruno about his constant posting of false information.  We've come to an agreement/bet, here are the terms:

Bet between Inaba and Phinnaeus Gage.

Bet terms:  Bruno will refrain from posting false information until January 1st, 2014. False information is defined as posting any information that is false, incorrect or unverified, including overt, non-overt, implied, speculated or otherwise not backed by hard, verifiable facts and/or proof.  Posting any false or incorrect information, making any implications or posting any "speculation" or unverified information will result in an immediate loss of the bet. Posting anything other than verified and verifiable facts will result in a loss of the bet. Posting with any sockpuppet accounts, alternate accounts or trying to circumvent the bet through third party posting, whether paid or unpaid will result in an immediate loss of the bet.

The bet is considered satisfied and won on January 1st, 2014 UTC if and only if Bruno Kucinskas or his agents have posted no false, incorrect, or unverified information as stipulated above. Any other outcome is considered a loss on the part of Phinnaeus Gage as per the terms of the bet.

The bet is for 10 BTC.  If Phinnaeus wins, Inaba will pay 10 BTC to the BTC address of Phinnaeus choice.  If Inaba wins, Phinnaeus will pay 10 BTC to the BTC address of Inabas choice and request and accept a permanent ban from Bitcointalk staff willingly and without recourse or appeal.  If the Bitcointalk staff refuse to ban his accounts, for whatever reason, Phinnaeus will refrain from ever posting on Bitcointalk again, either as himself or any alternate accounts.

Bruno said privately he would agree to those terms and I agree to those terms.  I suspect I will have this bet won inside of a week unless he issues a self-appointed ban on posting anything... Bruno has already agreed with the terms of the bet privately, I assume he will do so publicly.  It will be an interesting couple of months to say the least.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I've been privately speaking to Bruno about his constant posting of false information.  We've come to an agreement/bet, here are the terms:

Bet between Inaba and Phinnaeus Gage.

Bet terms:  Bruno will refrain from posting false information until January 1st, 2014. False information is defined as posting any information that is false, incorrect or unverified, including overt, non-overt, implied, speculated or otherwise not backed by hard, verifiable facts and/or proof.  Posting any false or incorrect information, making any implications or posting any "speculation" or unverified information will result in an immediate loss of the bet. Posting anything other than verified and verifiable facts will result in a loss of the bet. Posting with any sockpuppet accounts, alternate accounts or trying to circumvent the bet through third party posting, whether paid or unpaid will result in an immediate loss of the bet.

The bet is considered satisfied and won on January 1st, 2014 UTC if and only if Bruno Kucinskas or his agents have posted no false, incorrect, or unverified information as stipulated above. Any other outcome is considered a loss on the part of Phinnaeus Gage as per the terms of the bet.

The bet is for 10 BTC.  If Phinnaeus wins, Inaba will pay 10 BTC to the BTC address of Phinnaeus choice.  If Inaba wins, Phinnaeus will pay 10 BTC to the BTC address of Inabas choice and request and accept a permanent ban from Bitcointalk staff willingly and without recourse or appeal.  If the Bitcointalk staff refuse to ban his accounts, for whatever reason, Phinnaeus will refrain from ever posting on Bitcointalk again, either as himself or any alternate accounts.

Bruno said privately he would agree to those terms and I agree to those terms.  I suspect I will have this bet won inside of a week unless he issues a self-appointed ban on posting anything... Bruno has already agreed with the terms of the bet privately, I assume he will do so publicly.  It will be an interesting couple of months to say the least.

Everything Josh stated above about our PM exchanges is accurate, and I agree to the above terms. I will now lock this thread as promised via PM to Josh.

~Bruno Kucinskas a.k.a. TMIBTCITW