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Web Firms Choose Profit Over Privacy

An anonymous reader writes "Web Firms Choose Profit Over Privacy details the tactics of retailers and marketers to sell customer data. Examples include promising not to sell consumer data, but then 'renting' the data, and the use of shopping cart software with different privacy policies than the merchant."

2 of 249 comments (clear)

  1. And who cares? by raehl · · Score: 0, Troll

    Does it really matter if someone knows I'm 25, white, have no kids, live alone, and make a decent salary in the computer industry, or that I tend to buy things online, or that my email address is raehl311@yahoo.com?

    Yeah, I get a pile of spam, so I just delete it. Annoying? Yeah, but so is weeding all of those credit card offers out of my mail (1-5 PER DAY) generated just because credit card companies have *ALL* of my information, including every debt and my SS#, from my credit report.

    If someone wants to screw with my life, or steal my money, or pretend to be me, they can just grab my credit card receipt next time I'm at a restaurant. If someone wants to pay to have my address along with the address of 100,000 other people who purchased a certain product on Amazon.com or wherever last year and send me marketing email ... big freaking deal.

    Get over yourselves people - you're just not that interesting. Nobody cares about your information except in an attempt to get you to buy stuff. IF you're buying porn, you're no more interesting than the other millions of people buying porn, if you're taking viagra, you're no more interesting than the other millions of people taking viagra, and if the guy at the grocery store's central office knows you buy a case of Depends every month - they don't care about that either. Your privacy is protected because you are just as uninteresting as hundreds of millions of other people out there.

  2. Re:Incompetence: a winning strategy by ceejayoz · · Score: 0, Troll

    I didn't know they had internet access at Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison...

    Are conjugal visits allowed?