Customer wifi easy to set up – but make sure its secure
There is a growing trend for places like restaurants and retail stores to provide free wifi access for customers. Its easy to set up – just plug a wifi router in to your internet modem, right? Not quite. It is important to set it up and maintain it so it is properly protected by a firewall, and is not connected to your internal systems. You don’t want customers or internet malfeasors to be able to get access to, or compromise your internal systems and the information it contains – such as customer credit card information.
Storefrontbacktalk has a good article that details the risks, and what steps to take to avoid it.
Security of personal information is a good point, but not the only one.
When a business advertises that it has “free” wifi and people subsequently visit that business and purchase product there, expecting to be able to get a connection, then they have a right to one. Or at least, that’s my take. If a problem exists on any given day, as sometimes happens, then the business is obliged (IMO) to post a notice to that effect. Anything less than that is a form of consumer fraud and is actionable (again, only IMO).
There’s a fairly well-known downtown London hotspot with an unsecured router. Often, some customers will have Internet access while others cannot get connected. That’s likely because there are only a limited number of connections and many of them are being used by non-customers within a close-enough geographical proximity. The management/staff point to the fact that some customers have a connection and infer that the connection problem is the individuals and not something that the business is responsible for.
Are you aware of any case law about this type of situation?
Comment by Greg Fowler — August 15, 2010 @ 10:59 am
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