April 14, 2005 | Data Leaks: So In, They Are Out?

Ralph Lauren, the mainstay of upper-middle class fashion, has decided to jump on the data leak bandwagon, letting it be known that hundreds of thousands of their customers' names and credit card numbers have fallen into the hands of ne'er-do-wells.

Ralph Lauren, ever tasteful and demure, doesn't quite want to trumpet its leak, perhaps fearing being as tarty as Paris Hilton.

The security breach was reported in Thursday's editions of The Wall Street Journal, which quoted "people with knowledge of the matter" as saying the data was stolen at Polo Ralph Lauren.

A spokeswoman at Polo Ralph Lauren, which is headquartered in New York, said "we have no comment at the moment" on the report. She asked that her name not be used.

But still, now that ever preppy's favorite flannel sheet retailer has gotten in on the action, one can only wonder if the trend has peaked.

How long can it be until every knock-off Gucci handbag shop in Chinatown starts announcing that their IT systems (their cellphones, presumably) were hacked?

Seriously, data leaks are so last month.

Posted by Ryan Singel at April 14, 2005 09:56 AM

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