Execs at Namaste Technologies (N.C) employed the Friday afternoon news dump strategy this afternoon when advising that an employee had been found to have used their patient data base to try to sell weed through a third party.

Namaste Technologies Inc. has determined that an e-mail list of users registered with Namaste MD was uploaded by an employee to a third party e-mail solicitation provider for the purposes of soliciting unauthorized cannabis sales.

I mean, it’s Namaste so this is probably not as shocking as it could be, but still… geez.

It is believed that the e-mails were first uploaded to the third party solicitation provider on May 4, 2019, following which affected Namaste MD users were sent e-mails over a period of five days, and the situation was contained following Namaste’s detection and handling of the incident. Namaste has now completed its investigation of the facts and circumstances leading up to the incident, and has taken appropriate action.

NOTE: This is Namaste MD, their medical-facing side, so we’re not talking about a ‘user data’ breach as much as we are a ‘patient data’ breach, which raises a load more red flags and will have consequences beyond just the company’s initial damage control and once again maligned reputation.

The company determined that the source of the information was an employee of the company affiliated with this website operator with which the company has no affiliation or relationship.

No info on who that employee was, or what’s happened to them since. Or who the third party was.

The company believes that other than a name and e-mail address, no other personally identifiable information was used or accessed. [..] The company is in the process of hiring a security expert to assist in a review and revision of its internal data control and security policies to better prevent incidents of this sort in the future. Namaste has contacted the impacted users to explain the nature and scope of the incident.

I’m a firm believer that any company deserves an opportunity to atone for past mistakes and, lord knows, Namaste has made plenty. In fact, the term ‘mistake’ is a little charitable, considering the outright chicanery former CEO Sean ‘ManBun’ Dollinger tried to pull off.

To their credit, the board ousted him when it became clear he’d outlived his ninth life, and have been doing the hard work, like cleaning up the books and killing off bullshit assets he’d bought, in the time since.

https://equity.guru/2019/04/25/namaste-n-v-puts-adult-room-stock-surges-man-bun-era-ends/

That’s been rough on the stock price, but a necessary blood-letting.

But this news is a gut punch to that credibility project and, frankly, the fact they waited until Friday afternoon to drop it on the investor crowd doesn’t exactly reek of the sort of full transparency we’re trying to give them credit for.

I want to know who that employee was, what position they held, what other data they had access to, was legal action considered, where that data was being used, what other info was available to this cat, what affected users will be given in compensation, and, if I’m honest…

Was this a Dollinger move?

I still get Namaste nuthuggers contacting me telling me I’m wrong about this company, and every time it happens I snap my fingers and another regrettable news item drops.

Equity.Guru has been exposing the company for over a year, and though we’re sorry if some folks were caught bagholding as it plummeted, considering the abuse we took every step of the way from those same people, I got no time for ya if you’re looking at now as being a time to buy back in.

— Chris Parry