Write Lightning is a blog from writer Deb Thompson.
Everyone is welcome here.
(Some links or topics may not be completely kid-appropriate.)
Everyone is welcome here.
(Some links or topics may not be completely kid-appropriate.)
Thu, Feb 24 2005
If You Make Money Off My Information You Should Be Responsible Enough To Tell Me That
And so the lawsuits begin against ChoicePoint. I hope this will at least bring attention to the fact that there are people who make money off our spending habits and our private information, even though we have never given them permission to do so. Choicepoint says on its site that they are calling for a "national discussion on how to ensure information is used responsbibly to ensure the positive benefits of information use are preserved and the illegal uses of data are severely punished". I believe if a company stores or retrieves information about me they should notify me of that fact, particularly if other people are paying them to do so. Choicepoint says it provides these products and services. That's a fairly broad range of opportunity for those who have less-than-stellar motives to misuse the information.
I loathe the idea of another law being enacted for all this. A law isn't going to fix the fact that the very kind of company that sets up services to do "background checks" was itself outwitted by criminals. I hope Choicepoint, and other corporations like it, won't pass the buck on this. They chose to place themselves in the business of making money off information, and now they need to take responsibility for that. The public didn't ask to be in their moneymaking database in the first place. At least this whole debaucle sheds light on that particular fact.
posted at: 16:09 | category: /Miscellaneous | link to this entry
And so the lawsuits begin against ChoicePoint. I hope this will at least bring attention to the fact that there are people who make money off our spending habits and our private information, even though we have never given them permission to do so. Choicepoint says on its site that they are calling for a "national discussion on how to ensure information is used responsbibly to ensure the positive benefits of information use are preserved and the illegal uses of data are severely punished". I believe if a company stores or retrieves information about me they should notify me of that fact, particularly if other people are paying them to do so. Choicepoint says it provides these products and services. That's a fairly broad range of opportunity for those who have less-than-stellar motives to misuse the information.
I loathe the idea of another law being enacted for all this. A law isn't going to fix the fact that the very kind of company that sets up services to do "background checks" was itself outwitted by criminals. I hope Choicepoint, and other corporations like it, won't pass the buck on this. They chose to place themselves in the business of making money off information, and now they need to take responsibility for that. The public didn't ask to be in their moneymaking database in the first place. At least this whole debaucle sheds light on that particular fact.
posted at: 16:09 | category: /Miscellaneous | link to this entry
