Eli Lilly Settles E-Mail Suit
Eli Lilly & Co. settled a lawsuit filed by a multi-state coalition of attorneys general stemming from a June 2001 incident in which it accidentally released the e-mail addresses of nearly 670 of its customers.Eli Lilly paid $160,000 and promised to strengthen its internal policies in regards to consumer privacy with additional employee training and monitoring and automated checks for its database software.
In the incident last year, an e-mail sent to customers about the cancellation of the "Medi-messenger" reminder service contained the e-mails of all the service's subscribers in the "To:" line of the e-mail header. In January, Eli Lilly made a separate settlement, also promising increased safeguards, with the Federal Trade Commission. Attorneys general from California, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Vermont were included in the settlement, announced July 25.
