LifeLock CEO Todd Davis identity Stolen|LifeLock CEO Identity Theft, LifeLock CEO Identity Stolen, Todd Davis CEO of LifeLock Lost Identity
While Davis does not encourage the company's 850,000 customers to be careless with their personal information, giving his own away underscores his approach to stopping the crime that some estimates say affects one in every five Americans.
"The way you make committing identity theft hard is not by hiding personal information, but by making that information useless," Davis said.
The ad campaign has boosted LifeLock's business, but the company is hardly alone in the field of identity theft protection.
The safeguards that LifeLock puts into action - including having three credit reports sent to you each year, instituting fraud alerts that require lenders to call you immediately for approval before extending credit, and removing your name from junk mail lists - are largely possible because of a 2003 law requiring the three big credit reporting companies to provide consumers with certain protections.
Davis acknowledged consumers could take the same steps themselves, but points out that people can change their own oil, too. At $10 a month, LifeLock figures customers will prefer to let it handle the paperwork.
The company also pays up to $1 million to help customers whose identity is stolen - 69 so far - sort out the mess, and deals with all the hassles.
"Sure, you can do a lot of this stuff for free," Davis said. "The difference is that the only thing we think about is how to protect your identity."
Not all of LifeLock's publicity has been due to Davis' provocative ad. The Tempe, Ariz., company ousted co-founder Robert Maynard after reports emerged about his bankruptcies and accusations he once stole the identity of his dad to get an American Express card.
And Davis himself had his identity stolen recently when someone used his very public Social Security number at a Texas check-cashing outlet to get a $500 loan. A company spokesman said the check-cashing operation didn't run a credit check before giving out the loan, which would have set off a fraud alert.
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