Xooms re-shipped with User data inside?

Teaser

A few units of Motorola Xoom were resold to customers without wiping out the data inside, belonging to previous owners

Pallab Jyotee Hazarika, Published 02/06/2012

According to a recent update from Motorola Mobility, it failed to wipe out some of the user data from about 100 units o65ut of a batch of 6200, Motorola Xoom Wi-Fi models. These tablets were refurbished and resold via daily deals Website Woot from October till December 2011.

However, the owners who performed a factory data reset before returning the devices will not be affected by this data enclosure. Motorola has warned that the data may include information users previously stored on the tablet as users name and passwords for email and social sites like Facebook and Twitter or may also be some other websites or applications that require passwords. There is also a possibility of the data’s being some documents or photographs.

Motorola has mentioned that as this matter may affect only a small number of refurbished units, Motorola has a strong commitment to its consumers and is proactively responding to mitigate any risk to its customers. They added that Motorola is committed to rigorous data-protection practices in order to protect its customers and will continue to take necessary steps to achieve their objective.

Motorola has encouraged their consumers who purchased a refurbished Xoom Wi-Fi tablet from Woot.com between October to December, to visit Motorola.com/xoomreturn or call Motorola mobility customer support at 1-800-734-5870 to determine if their tablet is affected.

To reduce the risk associated with this issue of user’s data from previous Xoom owners, Motorola has now offered the customers who purchased and returned a Xoom Wi-Fi tablet to a number of retail outlets a complimentary two year membership of Experian’s ProtectMyID Alert credit-monitoring service.

Motorola has also suggested the Xoom owners who returned their devices for resale to contact Experian at 1-866-926-9803 to sign up for the protection service and also to change the passwords of their email and social networking accounts.