Sears (SHLD) exposes customer data

When it rains, it pours for Sears Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD). As if an ailing stock price weren't enough for its chairman, Eddie Lampert, being named the Worst CEO of 2007. a huge slap in the face, a blog post went up over the weekend titled, Sears Exposes Customer Purchase History in Violation of Its Privacy Policy.

The well-written post gives clear, easy-to-understand instructions on how to figure out how much your next door neighbor paid for his plasma TV when he bought it at the neighborhood Sears. After a back and forth, Sears finally took the issue seriously and disabled the bug in their search function on the Sears website.

Turns out that the blog cited above is written by Ben Edelman, an assistant professor at the Harvard Business School in the Negotiation, Organizations, & Markets unit. In Edelman's bio (he's got four degrees from Harvard!), Edelman claims that he wrote about domain name politics, particularly in the context of expired domain names subsequently used for pornography and registered with false WHOIS data. He developed methods for testing internet filtering worldwide, without leaving his office, publishing reports on filtering in China and in Saudi Arabia.

He is a serious dude when it comes to Internet strategy and techniques. Maybe Sears should hire Edelman to run its online division?

Zack Miller is the Managing Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund. Author holds no positions in SHLD.