LOYALTY GROUP SHUTS DOWN WEB SITE
By Adnews Staff
The Loyalty Group of Toronto, which operates the Air Miles Reward Program, shut down its Web site last week after a software developer illegally downloaded information from a sub-directory on the site. The information downloaded was about individual Air Miles collectors who use the Web site. "It was wrong for the individual to download this information and to transmit it to the media," Loyalty president and CEO Craig Underwood says in a release. "Nonetheless, we should have protected this sub-file on our Web site with the same level of absolute security that we use to protect all of our collector information." The Loyalty Group says most of its site is protected by eight layers of security protection and that no information regarding collector purchases at Air Miles sponsors is available on the Web site. The software developer has assured the company that the information he obtained was not retained or used.