Megan West(erby)

"

We believe CBS lied to us when they denied sending, or at least intending to send, the data to the RIAA, and that they subsequently asked us to attribute the quote to Last.fm to make the statement defensible. Last.fm’s denials were strictly speaking correct, but they ignored the underlying truth of the situation, that their parent company supplied user data to the RIAA, and that the data could possibly be used in civil and criminal actions against those users. We believe that the outrage they aimed at us for reporting the story, which was materially correct, should have been aimed at CBS instead. But Last.fm never spoke publicly of the real facts of the story.

We believe Last.fm and CBS violated their own privacy policy in the transmission of this data. We also believe CBS and Last.fm may have violated EU privacy laws, including the Data Protection Directive, and should be investigated by the appropriate authorities.

And to the CBS employee who was fired and threatened based on this story - we believe certain U.S. Whistle Blower laws may protect you from retaliation from CBS in this matter. We’d like to provide you with legal counsel at our cost.

"

~ Deny This, Last.fm

24 May 2009 ·