A week after the Rothken law firm filed a federal class action lawsuit against SCEA with regards to the PlayStation Network breach, Toronto law firm McPhadden Samac Tuovi LLP has commenced its own lawsuit against the company.
The Canadian law firm is claiming damages in excess of $1 billion against Sony Japan, Sony USA, Sony Canada and other Sony entities. The company alleges "breach of privacy" and claims that Sony must "pay the costs of credit monitoring services and fraud insurance coverage for two years."
The lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, Natasha Maksimovic, is a 21 year old Mississauga resident. In a statement, she noted, "If you can't trust a huge multi-national corporation like Sony to protect your private information, who can you trust."
"It appears to me that Sony focuses more on protecting its games than its PlayStation users," she said -- an apparent jab at Sony's recently-settled lawsuit that the company said was intended to protect PS3 from software piracy.
The lawsuit comes in the wake of millions of PlayStation Networks users' details being compromised after an illegal intrusion into the network. McPhadden Samac Tuovi LLP said 1 million Canadian user accounts were compromised.
At a press conference last week, Sony explained that stopping the PSN system had taken "more time than expected", but assured consumers that the service will be resumed within the month.
It will take massive fines and lawsuits (all of which will settle for much less).
The law will pursue the hackers, but that is much harder to do then punch Sony in the face.
Until the consequences for NOT securing data becomes more expensive than paying for enhanced security we will continue to see data breaches of this magnitude.
Except for the fact that this could have been any company on the face of the planet. Nothing is un-hackable. Sony has not been legally proven negligent whatsoever yet.
OJ Simpson was declared innocent in his famous murder trial but the victims' families still sued him and won the case.
Civil litigation is separate from criminal litigation.
Outside of all that, if you've been paying attention to what has come to light in this case it is easy to see that Sony has been negligent to some degree. Whether it is enough to violate specific laws or not remains to be seen. From what I can tell so far (albeit second/third hand) Sony has violated privacy laws.
So why is a 21 year old sueing in such excess....$1 Billion...really?
Why can't people realize that Sony was attacked...they had the information somewhat protected..but its not like they were out there saying....Please take this information. I'm sure they had security measures..but attacks are obviously getting more complex.
PS..any news on when PSN coming back up...i just wanna play some games...shit.
It's a class action, not a suit filed on behalf of one person. Any monetary award for damages would be split between all of the people who are part of the class, in this case all of the users who had their information stolen.
I think everyone knows that Sony was attacked and that the data loss wasn't intended on their part, but that doesn't change the fact that they are legally responsible for protecting the privacy of their consumer base. If they aren't capable of doing so then they shouldn't be collecting the information in the first place.
At this point they need all the cash they can get. Don't think they are going to dump SOE. Lets just hope all this puts the screws to SOE to fix things up.
There will be plenty of cases like this, a bunch of lawyers will make money, and Sony will settle all of the suits by providing credit monitoring services to those effected.
That is how these things always work out and how they will continue to work out.
The REAL financial hit to Sony will be the fines and sanctions applied to them by the various government agencies around the world that are now investigating this incident. They will be spending millions/billions over the next decade or so on fines, increased security measures, and the reporting that will be required by the governments.
Seriously feel sorry for Sony >_<
What will it take to make the law adequate to go after the hackers?
The law will pursue the hackers, but that is much harder to do then punch Sony in the face.
Until the consequences for NOT securing data becomes more expensive than paying for enhanced security we will continue to see data breaches of this magnitude.
Thanks
Civil litigation is separate from criminal litigation.
Outside of all that, if you've been paying attention to what has come to light in this case it is easy to see that Sony has been negligent to some degree. Whether it is enough to violate specific laws or not remains to be seen. From what I can tell so far (albeit second/third hand) Sony has violated privacy laws.
Why can't people realize that Sony was attacked...they had the information somewhat protected..but its not like they were out there saying....Please take this information. I'm sure they had security measures..but attacks are obviously getting more complex.
PS..any news on when PSN coming back up...i just wanna play some games...shit.
I think everyone knows that Sony was attacked and that the data loss wasn't intended on their part, but that doesn't change the fact that they are legally responsible for protecting the privacy of their consumer base. If they aren't capable of doing so then they shouldn't be collecting the information in the first place.
"All your base are belong to us!"
That is how these things always work out and how they will continue to work out.
The REAL financial hit to Sony will be the fines and sanctions applied to them by the various government agencies around the world that are now investigating this incident. They will be spending millions/billions over the next decade or so on fines, increased security measures, and the reporting that will be required by the governments.