Fist Bob you assume it is the access we are concerned with, it's not. Make no mistake an encrypted tunnel is much more secure than a modem, but a modem can make a secure transaction as well.
Our biggest issue comes once the 3rd party is in the system, what they do and what data do they get. Who at the 3rd party has the information access, who at the 3rd part has all the keys, what is the 3rd party’s data security policies on its servers, how are they secured, what is the 3rd parties security policy with its employee's who have access to the data and the dealerships servers, I could go on and on.
Bob there is enough technology out there to secure the transaction, no doubt. But the dealerships contingent liability is with their dealership and the customers in their system, if a law suit was to come about the lawyer would sue everyone involved starting with the deepest pockets first and Reynolds would be at t he top of that list. Secondly our contingent liability spans millions of customers over thousands of dealerships. So as you can see we have cause to be a bit more concerned than the vendor wanting the data or the dealership wanting to give it.
While there would be a strong possibility we would be able to detach ourselves in a law suit from the vendor and the dealership it would still take some number of hundreds of thousands of dollars in court, compare that to the cost of just protecting the data and the dealership up front and it is stupid for us not to do so, as is a fraction of the cost of a law suit for us and the dealer
