Gay teen mag closure sparks privacy fears

The closure of a US website and magazine for gay teens has sparked privacy fears over what will happen to sensitive personal information held by the now defunct publication. US consumer watchdog the FTC warned owners of XY Magazine and XY.com against the sale or transfer of private user data during bankruptcy proceedings …

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheers and Jeers

Cheers to the FTC for respecting *anyone's* privacy, especially a group as vulnerable as in-the-closet gay teens.

Jeers to me for thinking horribly immature giggle-inducing thoughts when I saw that the magazine was created by "Peter Cummings". (I am in my thirties but part of my brain is apparently 8 years old.)

[Alexander Hanff 1]

Interesting situation

I say interesting because I was asking exactly the same questions about the UK Gov systems which are being shut down as a result of the great repeal. For example, what is going to happen to the data currently stored in the Contact Point or NIR databases?

I haven't had a chance to read any recent info on these issues so it may have already been addressed but if it hasn't there needs to be clarification on how and when this data will be destroyed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Investment

This could be a gold mine in 20-30 years.

[Alastair 7]

Not to sound negative, but

"The XY database is especially sensitive because the magazine and site offered its services to gay teenagers and young adults, many of whom still lived at home and many more who had yet to come out to their friends and family. "

Wouldn't the regular delivery of a "gay teens" magazine give hints to the parents of a home-dwelling teenager that he/she might be gay?

[OkKTY8KK5U]

Re: Not to sound negative, but

In my observation and experience, there's an inverse relationship between intolerant authoritarianism and intelligence, so I'm willing to bet that plenty of teens living in such homes figured out ways to slip such things past their parents. Also, a "subscriber" to online-only services would only need to figure out how to hide a web trail from their parents.

[ratfox]

Nah, that's all right

It was delivered with a fake cover titled "Horny bondage girls"

[Ken 16]

Where's the personal information for that kept?

Paris, did you see my handcuffs?

[Criminny Rickets]

re: Not to sound negative, but

-- Wouldn't the regular delivery of a "gay teens" magazine give hints to the parents of a home-dwelling teenager that he/she might be gay?

---

Not necessarily. Normally the magazine would come wrapped in plain white paper so you could not tell what the magazine was.

[Anonymous Coward]

WRITE ONLY MEMORY.

Well not exactly, but encrypted in such a way that it takes the intervention of a court to open the record. This satisfies the needs of former subscriber privacy, while retaining any potential legal trail that might be needed at some future time.

And the same idea could be applied to total coverage of places like prisons, mints and diamond mines by camera while preserving individual day to day privacy.

[Tom Maddox]

Non-issue

This is a non-issue. If the gay teens in question didn't want their personal information exposed, they should never have made it available to a third party, especially one on the Internet. At least, that's the argument I always hear in the the discussions about Facebook violating users' privacy, so I don't see why it shouldn't hold up here.

[Seamless]

Gay youth struggling with identity disclosure at home

Re: "Wouldn't the regular delivery of a "gay teens" magazine give hints to the parents of a home-dwelling teenager that he/she might be gay?"

Presumably those readers would have obtained print copies by picking them up (among many other publications) freely distributed at dance bars, gay bars, book stores, youth centers, and the like, rather than delivery to their parents' addresses (or even to a PO Box), or for those slightly older than the average age, might have received copies at a college dorm address rather than at home. It's not that difficult to remain hidden particularly when parents aren't keen on looking too closely.

[Anonymous Coward]

At last!

Been mentioning this sort of thing to people for ages.

All that info, all those pictures and such like that you upload to these social network sites. What happens when they fold? What about all that info, when it gets sold on to the marketers? Make no mistake it will be sold on to the highest bidder.

I wish people would realise, every word, every image will be stored by these sites for evermore, especially as most IT depts will run backups and store data offsite.