> > Udhay can you educate me on how voting with your feet or taking them to a > court in India can help if a Credit Card company employee spends Rs > 100,000 > on your credit card account and you get a bill 3 weeks later? >
Shiv, since I wrote that piece, permit me to do to answer this question. The answer lies in incentives: all the incentives for a credit card company are aligned towards putting in place safeguards that do not allow its employees access to sensitive data, and to make it too risky for those with access to trade it. It is a different matter in government, where employees effectively have tenure. Trusting a bank and a credit card company means that you automatically trust a back-up system of law enforcement and justice that the bank promises you. Why then turn around and say that you do not trust that system of law enforcement and justice? Actually, I don't have much faith in the rule of law in India, though it is more likely to act against a private party than itself. But do you know what I believe in? Competition. Every credit card company knows that an incident where it is found to have compromised sensitive data will lead to terrible publicity, and will affect it in the marketplace. That is far more likely to keep than honest than fear of the cops. But the irony that causes me the greatest degree of amusement is that the > writer of the blog would probably never use a cybercafe to reveal his bank > and credit card details. He lives in a real world in which he realises > that > this would be stupid. > Well, I have done this when I have travelled outside Mumbai and needed to book an airline ticket urgently and take a printout from a cyber cafe. I claim guilty to 'stupid'. Are you saying that the law should not protect stupid people? I would elaborate more, but have a flight to catch in an hour, and will spend the next two weeks in a city where I will be forced to use a cyber cafe. Ah well! :) On 9/10/07, shiv sastry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
