When the customer is not always right

Dogged by Data Theft - NYTimes.com

"‘Why did the U.S. stick with the mag stripe?’ said David Robertson, publisher of The Nilson Report. It may not have been best for consumers, but it was ‘cheap and efficient’ for the banks and retailers. What’s more, banks and retailers had a certain amount of fraud built into their business models. Thus, while a hacked card brought big headaches to the customer, it was just another cost of doing business for the other entities involved in the transaction."

A good piece by Joe Nocera here in the Times (sorry about the paywall—I’m trying to cut down).