FTC Sounds Alarm On Data Brokers

Pressure to clamp down on the data-broker industry went up a notch last week, with the Federal Trade Commission releasing a detailed report on industry practices and calling on Congress to pass legislation that would give consumers a way to “view, suppress and fix their information,” according to an account in the New York Times. The FTC report, as an example, cited one data broker that had 3,000 data categories for nearly every American consumer. A spokesperson for the  Direct Marketing Association responded by saying that the report failed to show there was harm to consumers, and that there was no need for legislation. Reactions from industry watchdogs and critics was generally favorable, although Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the FTC didn’t go far enough and the report represented a missed opportunity. He maintains, for example, that data brokers should be required to contact a person before it can sell his or her information to other entities, including prospective employers, insurers or government agencies.