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Online Clearinghouse Offers To Defend Privacy
jfruhlinger writes "Privacy may have become a hot-button issue in the Internet age, but the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has been fighting against corporate privacy violations for 20 years now. Today, they've launched an online complaint center that will hopefully help keep your private data private. Fill out the online form and the PRC will follow up with the privacy compliance officer at the company in question, or investigate whether a complaint to a government agency is in order."
As best as I can trace their history, it looks like they come from the generic consumer-advocacy nonprofit space. I believe they were set up in the 1990s as a project of the Utility Consumers' Action Network, a San-Diego-based organization that mainly distributes information about utility services to the general public, as well as advocating for public-friendly policies. One of the utilities they traditionally monitored were the phone companies, and with the rise of the internet in the 1990s, they started collecting and distributing information about ISPs, and more generally some information about how to use the internet without getting scammed/etc. Seems to have later spun off into an independent or semi-independent group.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
In bold text on that page: "You do not have to register to file a complaint."
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Trepidity is correct. The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (PRC) is a program of the Utility Consumer's Action Network (UCAN). UCAN is a 501-c-3 nonprofit, which means we get our funding from donations and grants. Beth Givens is our founder and director: http://www.privacyrights.org/about_us.htm#staff. We do not sell consumer data. Our privacy policy is at http://www.privacyrights.org/policy.htm.