Computerworld - As CEO of LifeLock Inc., Todd Davis has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons. Two months ago, the Federal Trade Commission slammed his company with a $12 million fine for deceptive advertising practices.
Attorneys general from several states have called his company's identity theft protection services a scam. And this week, the Phoenix New Times reported that Davis had been a victim of identity theft at least 13 times, even while he has been busy pitching the effectiveness of his company's identity protection services.
In this interview, Davis, who is famous for publicly posting his Social Security number on billboards and TV commercials to promote LifeLock, vigorously defends his company and himself. Far from being a scam, Davis insists, LifeLock has been a game-changer that has shaken things up in an industry once tightly controlled by the three major credit reporting bureaus.
People are wondering how the CEO of a company which sells identity theft protection services could himself be the victim of identity theft 13 times. What would you say to them? Here are the facts. We have always said that no one can completely stop identity theft, including LifeLock. We have said on our Web site since inception that there's no lock that can't be picked if you were to spend enough time or money. But by going out there and putting ourselves and me, specifically, out there with a bullhorn giving out my Social Security number, we got people talking.
We affected a massive change in the industry. Hell, we created the industry. Before, the best service you could get was credit monitoring that you could buy from a credit bureau that sells you a copy of your data that they sell to other people. Now, because of LifeLock, because we've stirred the debate, we've made the bureaus change their offerings, we made competitors elevate their game for the first time ever. We knew when we started this process that I was going to have issues that would have to be resolved and remediated. We never tried to make the claim nothing would ever happen to me.
What new industry did LifeLock create, exactly? I truly mean identity theft protection. I mean proactive services that attempt to mitigate the risk of identity theft before it happens. Not like credit bureaus which sell your data to you and to anybody else who is qualified to buy it. We were the first ones who actually began to put up a front line of defense to lessen the chance of identity theft.
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