Dish Agrees to $210 Million Fine

You might ask why the fact that Dish is going to pay a fine is cybersecurity or privacy news and even if it is, why is it worth an alert.

Here is the story.

The settlement says that Dish violated the Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule, the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act and a number of other laws by, among other things, repeatedly calling people on the Do Not Call List, abandoning calls, using automated calls and other violations.

Okay, so now you understand what they did. Why is this special?

Because, the company that made these calls, at least in part, WAS NOT DISH, but rather Dish partner retailers.

In fairness, there were a lot of calls – about 66 million.

Dish has been fighting this for about 10 years and finally figured out that they were not going to win, so they agreed to pay. The fine was reduced from $280 million, so they did save a few bucks.

What is important to understand here is that your independent business partners may break the law, but you may be held liable. Dish did not direct these partners to make illegal phone calls. In fact, they didn’t have a lot of direct control over the partners, but they were selling Dish products and services.

The court is saying, in about 200 million ways, that you are responsible for the cybersecurity and privacy practices of your independent business partners.

By the way, this is the largest civil penalty ever paid to the federal government for making spam phone calls.

Choose your partners wisely.

Credit: The law firm of Ballard Spahr