Did Kurt Greenbaum violate the P-D's privacy policy?
As Gawker eloquently writes, this post involves a dustup between a tattletale newspaper and a vulgar commenter. It may have cost the “anonymous” commenter’s job, but at least the tattletale still has his. Check this link for the back-story: http://j.mp/greenbaum
But what is topical is the apparent violation of the Post-Dispatch’s privacy policy. Below is an interesting comment from an article in the Post-Dispatch: http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/the-editors-desk/the-editors-desk/2009/11/follow-up-the-case-of-the-vulgar-comment-and-the-school/all-comments/#comments
From the Post-Dispatch Privacy policy:
“We will not share individual user information with third parties unless the user has specifically approved the release of that information. In some cases, however, we may provide information to legal officials as described in “Compliance with Legal Process” below. ”
Kurt, unless you were talking to a legal official at that school, how do you justify your action in light of the posted Privacy Policy on this site?
— Altongal
12:31 pm November 17th, 2009
Kurt shared identifying information (the IP address) with a 3rd party in violation of his employer’s privacy policy that served to effectively fire the “anonymous” commenter. Additionally, he gloated (titling his post, “Post a vulgar comment, lose your job!”), called the commenter a jackass, and as of this post has yet to apologize for his actions. Who’s the jackass now, Kurt?
This story saddens me on so many levels… If only Kurt were more stringent with racist comments than off-color jokes! Read more about the Post-Dispatch’s admitted “laziness” in upholding its own commenting policy: http://stltomorrow.org
How will this story end? How should it end?
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Edit - Apparently I’m not alone here: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=117655
