September 20, 2006
Blogger is Target of Retailer’s Ire and Lawsuit
“John Doe” has a big, blogging mouth and Target is not happy about it. So unhappy, in fact, the company is trying to track him down to quiet him with a lawsuit.
What’s got Target so riled up?
Mr. (if he is a Mr.) Doe has published details of Target’s anti-theft procedures online. The information, which is available to company employees on a “need to know” basis, provides procedure on how workers should go about securing merchandise from shoplifters.
Target’s lawsuit claims the postings have already led to losses and provide “potential wrongdoers with a blueprint for circumventing Target’s security procedures.”
The Atlanta Business Chronicle obtained the information at targetunion.org. According to the publication, the online posting details company rules, such as prosecuting anyone accused of stealing $20 or more in merchandise. It also says no one should be allowed to photograph employees who have been caught shoplifting.
The company believes Mr./Ms. Doe obtained its policy and procedure document from a former theft prevention employee for Target living in Wisconsin. The ex-employee, who posted the information in July on targetunion.org, is alleged to have emailed Target’s policy to Mr./Ms. Doe who in turn added it to a number of forums.
Target contacted the former employee and demanded he delete the posting from the site as well as remove the information from his computer. He reportedly obliged, but Mr./Ms. Doe continued to post the message on anti-Target sites.
The retailer has attempted to contact John Doe through a number of email accounts and has gone so far as to post its own messages demanding the company’s information be removed from public view.
Mr./Ms. Doe has responded to Target’s postings under screen names such as “Target Sucks.” In one alleged response, he/she reportedly wrote: “I didn’t sign any confidentiality agreement with them and really don’t give a ****** if they like it or not.”
Target has also requested the help of AOL, Yahoo! and Microsoft in tracking down Mr. Doe. There are no public indications at this point that any of the companies have followed through on the retailer’s request.
Should the retailer succeed in tracking down Mr./Ms. Doe, it still has its work cut out for it, especially if he/she refuses to remove postings.
According to David Bodney, a First Amendment and media rights lawyer with Steptoe & Johnson, the court would need to determine if Mr./Ms. Doe knew the information was confidential when first posting it. Target would also need to prove the postings had no purpose other than making the retailer look bad.
Target is not the first company to go down this path. Eugene Volokh, a University of California law professor who specializes in free speech issues, compared the case to others involving Apple Computer and Ford.
Apple has had “mixed luck” going after individuals who have leaked information about the company’s products before it was ready to go public.
Ford lost a lawsuit in 1999 against a blogger who posted corporate documents pointing out negative information about the cars the company makes.
Discussion Question: What warnings/lessons do the “Target versus John Doe” case hold for retail companies and others in the industry?
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This issue has been around for a long, long time, well before there was blogging. The new element brought on by blogging is the ability to rapidly spread in a very public way the information which concerns the company (in this case, Target). Prior to the Internet and blogging, dissemination of such information was quite slow and the process fairly burdensome (copying, mailing, personally handing out, and in some cases faxing) which meant the information didn’t go far or took a long time to get around. Today, of course, dissemination is almost instantaneous.
Target could (1) ignore what happened, or (2) become aggressive about it. Ignoring it runs the risk that others will leak information that matters more than the anti-theft policy. Becoming aggressive may act as a deterrent. While it is tough to second-guess Target, there is a lot to be said for the high ground approach. If the anti-theft policy doesn’t have any obvious flaws, Target could have stopped after contacting the former employee and then simply acknowledged that it, like all retailers, has to deal with the challenging problems of retail theft.
One of the most interesting side-notes about this story is the insight it gives us into Target’s Defense Structure. The information this blogger has posted is clearly High-Intensity Information — extremely threatening to Target on several levels. One of those levels deals not with the information itself, but the “disrespect” it shows to Target and its “privacy.” How does Target process this information? It processes it by trying to block this information and punish the person delivering it. Target may also be processing this information in other ways, but we don’t know. Many business organizations process this same category of High-Intensity Information the same way, which is probably one reason we see Target taking the actions it is taking.
Information of this type is still information. It is conveying data, and in this case, data that is possibly mostly “sub-text.” We see that Target appears to have difficulty effectively processing High-Intensity information. In this case, it is a blogger. In another case, it may be a Target executive with unpopular views, or a division or prominent work team that is unhappy. It is easy to dismiss this example as a “cranky” blogger who only has an axe to grind; if we do so, we lose, and Target loses, the chance to see its systematic information processing errors that may be costing the organization literally millions of dollars.
Target is chasing a ghost. Finding the person will not change the information. They are only getting more people to read it. It is forever captive in a time unknown.
And how often has the law stopped an angry employee from doing something bad? What I would recommend is to recruit the public and announce how theft increases the cost of products and that this leak costs everyone.
We can all be as high and mighty as we want about the sanctity of private information, loyalty and legality, but to really understand an incident like this one we need to inquire about the motives of the blogger/poster. Past experience shows several possibilities (in order from more likely to pretty far-fetched):
1) Pointless glory. Poster is a rogue individual who enjoys making a large corporation twitch. If so, it’s working.
2) Individual vendetta. Poster is a former Target employee or shoplifter with a grudge over some past incident.
3) Crusader. Poster is an individual who believes he/she is advancing a just higher cause, social, political or otherwise.
4) Dirty trick by a labor union or social action group. Poster is a member of or in the employ of a frustrated group trying to make a point.
5) Dirty trick by a competitor. Poster is in the employ of a Target competitor whose strategy is to create distractions to management and thereby gain a slight edge.
It’s well and good to admit that Target must accept that individuals may say things it doesn’t like. True, there is little or no privacy any more. By pursuing legal remedies, however, the company also makes clear that it won’t stand for the dirty tricks either.
I am not sure of the source of the quote, but it went something like this: “If you don’t want it to be on the front page of the paper in the morning, then you likely shouldn’t do it.”
If this is really a policy and they are really a public company, then it deserves to be public. This isn’t a trade secret, a marketing secret or anything of the sort. In fact, it’s likely the exact opposite.
If anyone should be upset about it, it should be their shareholders for the waste of money on legal costs.
Now, if I could only have said that as precisely as Ryan’s comments….
It is somewhat ironic that a blogger, who has the benefit of anonymity, has created or exposed a chink in the armor of Target’s “private” security measures. I think Target is right to be aggressive, if only for the cause of privacy. By nature, security practices have to be shrouded at least a little bit from public view in order to be effective. One must be sneaky to catch a sneak. All that said, it might be time for Target to revamp its security measures behind the scenes. Let the public blog be public. It’s no good to anyone if it’s not accurate.
Welcome to the communications realities of the 21st Century! Bloggers have independently and spontaneously celebrated their experiences with retailers like Wawa and Trader Joe’s over the last couple of years, and it’s now evident that blogging is a new state-of-the-art for word-of-mouth advertising. The Target experience is unfortunate but does highlight the new realities created by blogging and the Internet, i.e., realities that are rapidly changing the traditional the communications paradigm with and among shoppers.
Martha Russell of Clickin Research and I will be examining the impact of new forms of digital communications on and with convenience-oriented teen shoppers at the upcoming NACS Convention.
Research for the NACS Coca-Cola Leadership Council on Convenience Teens by Clickin has highlighted the importance of this issue. Anyone interested in receiving a copy of our presentation as well as a copy of the original research can contact me.
In line with Ryan’s comment was the observation by Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems years ago: “You have no privacy, get over it.” Having said that, I don’t think these dismissals of privacy/security are totally on the mark, either. At least not yet. The bad guys, whether shoplifters or terrorists, are still aided and abetted by information, and to just say that they should have free access to anything because of “public” issues seems unwise and cavalier in the extreme.
I don’t know whether Target will prevail in this case, but I strongly support their pursuit of it. It has struck me as odd that I have not heard a word of support for Hewlett Packard’s pursuit of a disloyal director, either. This is WRONG! People who have sworn support to an organization, whether a country or a company, owe some loyalty to the “them vs. us” privacy issues. Arrogant self determined disclosure of information to “them” is anarchic and outrageous, whether pursued by the New York Times, Armitage, or someone blatantly attempting to undermine Target’s anti-shoplifting efforts. I take this personally because when I shop at Target, I am paying for these low-life thieves and their enablers.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize the tide of history that is washing away privacy. I even favor it, for reasons too extensive to cover here. But for “non-privacy” to fairly prevail it cannot be asymmetric. That is, if you want to have total transparency for the “leaders and builders,” then you must insist on total transparency for the dissenters, critics and destroyers, too. So how about a shoplifter database? Or a big red “A” branded on the forehead of all those convicted of shoplifting?
Getting used to a new world in which information is freely available is not an easy adjustment. Going after the employee who took the material and posted was certainly justified in terms of an agreement with how employees handle confidential information. And maybe there is an issue about that individual’s responsibility in passing the information along. However, going after Mr/Ms Doe is another issue if that person was not an employee and had no such agreement with the company. Now, however, Target’s primary charge should be to change the policies so that what is being published online is not the current policy and to put other safeguards in place. It is best to assume that the current safeguards are now well known and ineffective.
Ryan, you’re right. To my knowledge, there are no secrets in retailing, either! Target is wasting its legal fees. It’s better to get publicity about neat design innovations.
I agree with Ryan; there are no secrets. Target is overreacting. I’ve been called to the carpet for posting rumors or making predictions that were too close to being that I too have been attacked similar to John Doe. What if the blogger had posted a satire of Target’s loss prevention policies? So what if some broken clock just happens to be right twice a day? Target is just being a big cry baby. I suggest in the future that Target not release their loss prevention policies to anyone outside of the board room unless they want the public to know. As far as I’m concerned, there should be no secrets in any public company. Keeping secrets in a company with hundreds of thousands of employees with high turnover is impossible to manage.
There are no secrets and — in cyberspace — information never dies.
While it is important that a blogger show responsible behaviour, not everyone would think that way. You would still find people indulging in activities that malign a Big,Established,Money-Making Corporate Firm and there is nothing you can do about that!!!
What Target really needs to do is prevent this from happening in the future. Bring in stronger clauses that would prevent Employees from misusing company information, even after they leave the organization.
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This issue has been around for a long, long time, well before there was blogging. The new element brought on by blogging is the ability to rapidly spread in a very public way the information which concerns the company (in this case, Target). Prior to the Internet and blogging, dissemination of such information was quite slow and the process fairly burdensome (copying, mailing, personally handing out, and in some cases faxing) which meant the information didn’t go far or took a long time to get around. Today, of course, dissemination is almost instantaneous.
Target could (1) ignore what happened, or (2) become aggressive about it. Ignoring it runs the risk that others will leak information that matters more than the anti-theft policy. Becoming aggressive may act as a deterrent. While it is tough to second-guess Target, there is a lot to be said for the high ground approach. If the anti-theft policy doesn’t have any obvious flaws, Target could have stopped after contacting the former employee and then simply acknowledged that it, like all retailers, has to deal with the challenging problems of retail theft.
One of the most interesting side-notes about this story is the insight it gives us into Target’s Defense Structure. The information this blogger has posted is clearly High-Intensity Information — extremely threatening to Target on several levels. One of those levels deals not with the information itself, but the “disrespect” it shows to Target and its “privacy.” How does Target process this information? It processes it by trying to block this information and punish the person delivering it. Target may also be processing this information in other ways, but we don’t know. Many business organizations process this same category of High-Intensity Information the same way, which is probably one reason we see Target taking the actions it is taking.
Information of this type is still information. It is conveying data, and in this case, data that is possibly mostly “sub-text.” We see that Target appears to have difficulty effectively processing High-Intensity information. In this case, it is a blogger. In another case, it may be a Target executive with unpopular views, or a division or prominent work team that is unhappy. It is easy to dismiss this example as a “cranky” blogger who only has an axe to grind; if we do so, we lose, and Target loses, the chance to see its systematic information processing errors that may be costing the organization literally millions of dollars.
Target is chasing a ghost. Finding the person will not change the information. They are only getting more people to read it. It is forever captive in a time unknown.
And how often has the law stopped an angry employee from doing something bad? What I would recommend is to recruit the public and announce how theft increases the cost of products and that this leak costs everyone.
We can all be as high and mighty as we want about the sanctity of private information, loyalty and legality, but to really understand an incident like this one we need to inquire about the motives of the blogger/poster. Past experience shows several possibilities (in order from more likely to pretty far-fetched):
1) Pointless glory. Poster is a rogue individual who enjoys making a large corporation twitch. If so, it’s working.
2) Individual vendetta. Poster is a former Target employee or shoplifter with a grudge over some past incident.
3) Crusader. Poster is an individual who believes he/she is advancing a just higher cause, social, political or otherwise.
4) Dirty trick by a labor union or social action group. Poster is a member of or in the employ of a frustrated group trying to make a point.
5) Dirty trick by a competitor. Poster is in the employ of a Target competitor whose strategy is to create distractions to management and thereby gain a slight edge.
It’s well and good to admit that Target must accept that individuals may say things it doesn’t like. True, there is little or no privacy any more. By pursuing legal remedies, however, the company also makes clear that it won’t stand for the dirty tricks either.
I am not sure of the source of the quote, but it went something like this: “If you don’t want it to be on the front page of the paper in the morning, then you likely shouldn’t do it.”
If this is really a policy and they are really a public company, then it deserves to be public. This isn’t a trade secret, a marketing secret or anything of the sort. In fact, it’s likely the exact opposite.
If anyone should be upset about it, it should be their shareholders for the waste of money on legal costs.
Now, if I could only have said that as precisely as Ryan’s comments….
It is somewhat ironic that a blogger, who has the benefit of anonymity, has created or exposed a chink in the armor of Target’s “private” security measures. I think Target is right to be aggressive, if only for the cause of privacy. By nature, security practices have to be shrouded at least a little bit from public view in order to be effective. One must be sneaky to catch a sneak. All that said, it might be time for Target to revamp its security measures behind the scenes. Let the public blog be public. It’s no good to anyone if it’s not accurate.
Welcome to the communications realities of the 21st Century! Bloggers have independently and spontaneously celebrated their experiences with retailers like Wawa and Trader Joe’s over the last couple of years, and it’s now evident that blogging is a new state-of-the-art for word-of-mouth advertising. The Target experience is unfortunate but does highlight the new realities created by blogging and the Internet, i.e., realities that are rapidly changing the traditional the communications paradigm with and among shoppers.
Martha Russell of Clickin Research and I will be examining the impact of new forms of digital communications on and with convenience-oriented teen shoppers at the upcoming NACS Convention.
Research for the NACS Coca-Cola Leadership Council on Convenience Teens by Clickin has highlighted the importance of this issue. Anyone interested in receiving a copy of our presentation as well as a copy of the original research can contact me.
In line with Ryan’s comment was the observation by Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems years ago: “You have no privacy, get over it.” Having said that, I don’t think these dismissals of privacy/security are totally on the mark, either. At least not yet. The bad guys, whether shoplifters or terrorists, are still aided and abetted by information, and to just say that they should have free access to anything because of “public” issues seems unwise and cavalier in the extreme.
I don’t know whether Target will prevail in this case, but I strongly support their pursuit of it. It has struck me as odd that I have not heard a word of support for Hewlett Packard’s pursuit of a disloyal director, either. This is WRONG! People who have sworn support to an organization, whether a country or a company, owe some loyalty to the “them vs. us” privacy issues. Arrogant self determined disclosure of information to “them” is anarchic and outrageous, whether pursued by the New York Times, Armitage, or someone blatantly attempting to undermine Target’s anti-shoplifting efforts. I take this personally because when I shop at Target, I am paying for these low-life thieves and their enablers.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize the tide of history that is washing away privacy. I even favor it, for reasons too extensive to cover here. But for “non-privacy” to fairly prevail it cannot be asymmetric. That is, if you want to have total transparency for the “leaders and builders,” then you must insist on total transparency for the dissenters, critics and destroyers, too. So how about a shoplifter database? Or a big red “A” branded on the forehead of all those convicted of shoplifting?
Getting used to a new world in which information is freely available is not an easy adjustment. Going after the employee who took the material and posted was certainly justified in terms of an agreement with how employees handle confidential information. And maybe there is an issue about that individual’s responsibility in passing the information along. However, going after Mr/Ms Doe is another issue if that person was not an employee and had no such agreement with the company. Now, however, Target’s primary charge should be to change the policies so that what is being published online is not the current policy and to put other safeguards in place. It is best to assume that the current safeguards are now well known and ineffective.
Ryan, you’re right. To my knowledge, there are no secrets in retailing, either! Target is wasting its legal fees. It’s better to get publicity about neat design innovations.
I agree with Ryan; there are no secrets. Target is overreacting. I’ve been called to the carpet for posting rumors or making predictions that were too close to being that I too have been attacked similar to John Doe. What if the blogger had posted a satire of Target’s loss prevention policies? So what if some broken clock just happens to be right twice a day? Target is just being a big cry baby. I suggest in the future that Target not release their loss prevention policies to anyone outside of the board room unless they want the public to know. As far as I’m concerned, there should be no secrets in any public company. Keeping secrets in a company with hundreds of thousands of employees with high turnover is impossible to manage.
There are no secrets and — in cyberspace — information never dies.
While it is important that a blogger show responsible behaviour, not everyone would think that way. You would still find people indulging in activities that malign a Big,Established,Money-Making Corporate Firm and there is nothing you can do about that!!!
What Target really needs to do is prevent this from happening in the future. Bring in stronger clauses that would prevent Employees from misusing company information, even after they leave the organization.