Police: Best Buy Let Porn-Poster On Its Network. No Hacking Involved
Written by Evan SchumanSouth Carolina police have now confirmed that the 29-year-old man arrested and charged with using a smartTV display at Best Buy to show store visitors a sexually oriented video was encouraged by Best Buy to post the video, in the same way that the store encourages all customers to test the new line of high-resolution TVs. This did more than give this guy his first police record. It set in motion a complicated series of legal problems for Best Buy, along with other retailers trying to sell Wi-Fi-accessible televisions.
Statements from police and Best Buy have been correct, but so devoid of context as to make them entirely misleading. A police statement said, for example, that suspect Robert Holden “used a personal electronic device to stream a pornographic video to a display television.”
What the statement didn’t say—but police have now confirmed—is that Holden transmitted those images by using the mechanism that Best Buy put in place to encourage customers to post their own photos and videos to the sets, to demonstrate the impressive screen resolution and clarity of the smartTVs. “He didn’t hack into the set or anything like that,” said Greenville Police Officer A.T. Urps, referring to Holden. “He thought it would be funny.”
What’s not so very funny are the lawsuits being prepared—on behalf of people in the store who saw the two adults engaged in extensive friendliness sans attire. (The phrasing we have to use to avoid spam filters.) Although those lawsuits have serious hurdles to prove meaningful monetary damages in an age where many broadcast and cable shows leave little to the imagination, they have a strong case against Best Buy.
For example, was it reasonable to anticipate that some customers, given direct unsupervised access to display any pictures or videos they choose to the store, would display inappropriate videos? Also, there were reportedly several such showings of adult-themed content on different days. Holden himself is accused of showing such videos on February 11, and then coming back on February 12 and showing it again. (Technically, it might have been a different adult video. That said, if the accusations are true, Holden deserves the misdemeanor charge for being dumb enough to come back and do it again. Smart TV, dumb customer. On the other hand, for getting away with it one day and having the chutzpa to come back and try again the next day, he probably deserves a reduced sentence.)
Getting back to the legal troubles, would it have been so difficult to force customers to go through a Best Buy employee or manager to display images/videos? The employee would have to look at the material first, and then—if it’s acceptable—the employee accesses a password-protected area to share the images.
As a practical and a legal matter, there are issues with the associate-approval method.
Cards issued by European banks when used online cross border don't usually support AVS checks. So, when a European card is used with a billing address that's in the US, an ecom merchant wouldn't necessarily know that the shipping zip code doesn't match the billing code.
-Marc
