Friday’s Food for Thought: LifeLock’s Exploiting Consumer Fears and Not Delivering Will Not Be Tolerated

This week’s $12 million dollar LifeLock settlement sent a bold message to providers of consumer protection services: exploiting consumers fear, and then failing to deliver on their expectations, will not be tolerated.

We’ve known for a long time LifeLock’s multi-million advertising campaign was misleading. CEO Todd Davis’ reckless display of his social security number on the side of trucks sent a clear message – our product is a silver bullet against identity theft. Illinois Attorney General Madigan put that myth to rest on Tuesday when she stated, “there is no 100% protection against identity theft.”

We know that. Our member companies live with it every day.

It’s good news that Identity management services are including features that alert consumers to possible fraud before criminals have an opportunity to exploit existing accounts or open new accounts or services. We always recommend consumers use free data protection tools – like monitoring their accounts online – but legitimate paid services can offer a extra level of protection and peace of mind.

It’s time that service providers, including ITAC and our proprietary service, ITAC Sentinel®, be held to a set of standards so consumers have a clear understandings of the value and limitations of paid identity theft protection.