[fooqux]

A few years ago, my bank mailed me a letter basically saying "A partner got hacked and lost your personal information. It was totally the partner's fault, not ours! We care about keeping your identity safe!"

And guess which company I was mad at? The company I bank with, or the generically-named sub-contracted company that the bank only partnered with so they didn't have to be held liable for potential breach of PCI and various laws? (Spoiler: It was the bank.)

Point being, Funko can try to cover their vinyl butts as much as they want. The bad PR is going where it belongs. I only wish the finical repercussions would too for things like this.

[Terr_]

I don't know the proper terminology, but I think there's a similar legal concept of: "I'm suing you for the damages, if it was someone you contracted with who is really at-fault, you can sue them in turn. The indirect cause is not-my-problem, and I might not even be able to go around you even if I wanted to."

Sometimes this manifests in odd ways, like lawsuits between loving family members in order to activate some sort of insurance-claim.

[JRagone]

A mechanic’s lien sounds like one instance of what you’re describing.

[cortesoft]

Right? There is no such thing as a ‘company’ doing something, anyway… it is always a decision by an individual or individuals at a company who makes the poor decision… why do I care if you paid that person on your own payroll, or if you paid them indirectly by paying a company that employees that individual… in either case, they are acting on behalf of the company when they act.

[finnthehuman]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS9ptA3Ya9E

[Terr_]

As much as I enjoy and share that link, I don't think it's quite the same: It would actually be more honest if banks had said: "Our deliberately insecure processes were exploited by scammers, but it's some contractor's fault."

In contrast, "identity theft" is trying to re-characterize the type of failure in order to blame the consumer.

> It was garbage, but it had been cooked by an expert. [...] The Grand Trunk’s problems were clearly the result of some mysterious spasm in the universe and had nothing to do with greed, arrogance, and willful stupidity. Oh, the Grand Trunk management had made mistakes—oops, "well-intentioned judgments which, with the benefit of hindsight, might regrettably have been, in some respects, in error"—but these had mostly occurred, it appeared, while correcting "fundamental systemic errors" committed by the previous management. No one was sorry for anything, because no living creature had done anything wrong; bad things had happened by spontaneous generation in some weird, chilly, geometric otherworld, and "were to be regretted."

-- Going Postal by Terry Pratchett