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February 02, 2007
Top 10 Big Brother Companies: Ranking the Worst Consumer Privacy Infringers
How much would you sell your private data to a company for? Would you take $100 to let someone see every site you have visited over the past year, how about $1,000? Today, many major companies spend millions collecting a variety data on individuals such as; what charities you donate to, your political beliefs, your shopping habits, your educational data and your contact information.
Unfortunately, you never get to decide how much your privacy is worth to you, because these companies aren't asking your permission.
In this article we highlight ten of the worst corporate offenders when it comes to invading privacy.
While we aren't so naive as to think that this sort of exposure is enough on its own to cause any real changes in corporate behavior, we hope that by helping to bring to light some of the personal privacy infringements that these companies are engaged in, more people will begin to select the companies they do business with on the basis of their privacy policy. If that starts to happen, real consumer-driven change is possible.
So without further adieu, here are the top ten big corporate privacy offenders:
10. Response Unlimited
In what is perhaps the boldest (and most brainless) information scam of all time, Response Unlimited, a large marketing firm, received authorization to sell a list of Terri Schiavo’s financial contributors to other companies as sales leads. The story broke on Response Unlimited's company wide privacy mining operation only after it was revealed that most of the donors were constantly getting loads of spam and telemarketing calls.
Response Unlimited’s shameless consumer data mining scheme earns them the number 10 spot on this countdown.
9. LexisNexis
Taking ninth place in our ranking is a company as notorious for its inability to secure the private information it has as it is for its privacy invasions. LexisNexis maintains the LexisNexis database, which includes millions of records which include mailing addresses of almost every person in the United States. In July of 2005, the LexisNexis security system was compromised resulting in more than 300,000 records being stolen by computer hackers. This security breach ranks among the top personal data heists of all time. Luckily, the LexisNexis hackers were identified as a few teenage kids looking to have some fun, but it demonstrated how inept their security measures are at protecting one of the largest caches of private data in the world.
8. America Online
America Online's privacy intrusion efforts are so aggressive and offensive, that the only explanation seems to be that AOL thought its clientele was so naïve they would never catch on to the company's privacy invasions. In August of 2006, America Online released web search data from more than 650,000 users without prior consent. A handful of users involved have since then filed a lawsuit against America Online citing that the released data contained information some users considered too private to ever make it beyond the comforts of their own home.
To attract new customers, America Online is currently using an anti-spyware software campaign. What America Online fails to tell you is that packaged within portions of their software (including AIM and various online games) lies WildTangent, an application that reports personal information directly to various databases. America Online went so far as fail to tell users WildTangent was being installed on their machines in the End User License Agreement, until mounting complaints finally forced their hand.
7. Amazon.com
It should come as no surprise that the world's biggest online store has a lot of private information pass through its servers on a daily basis. Amazon.com happens to have receipts on more than 59 million active customers, which are used by the company to track the purchases that individual customers make.
To make matters worse, Amazon.com now has the capability to cross reference their database with public records to create enough marketing information to make any unscrupulous retailer squeal with delight. Amazon.com is currently among the world leaders in distributing information about its users to advertisers, and if they continue this practice the recent advancements in data mining by Amazon threaten to make shopping online with any form of anonymity a thing of the past. To give you an idea of the severity of Amazon.com’s commitment to exploiting their costumers here is an excerpt from their privacy policy:
"As we continue to develop our business, we might sell or buy stores, subsidiaries, or business units. In such transactions, customer information generally is one of the transferred business assets."
Yes, you read that correctly, Amazon is in the business of selling private consumer data. And for that move, they earn the #7 spot in our ranking.
6. Yahoo!
The world’s most popular website Yahoo! is also one of the world’s biggest data aggregators. The plethora of services Yahoo! offers provides the ideal data collection scheme. The beauty of the system is, Yahoo! doesn’t have to go through any extraordinary means to obtain your personal information; instead, users voluntarily give Yahoo! their information every time they use a Yahoo! product, perform a search, enter a Yahoo! promotion or sweepstakes, or purchase products through Yahoo!. Eventually, Yahoo! has acquired enough of your personal data to create for each user an individualized profile which they use to target advertisements that are most likely to appeal to you.
5. Microsoft
It will come as little surprise to many that Microsoft products are among the world’s elite when it comes to privacy invasion. Microsoft is constantly developing new ways to aggregate customer data for the ostensible purpose of creating a "smoother ride" for the user. Practically speaking, however, many Microsoft products and features are designed simply to provide a convenient way for the program to report back to Microsoft databases what type of activities you regularly engage in on your computer. In effect, the Windows operating system works like a two-way mirror: the customer has little idea that Microsoft is literally watching every move he makes.
Perhaps the most insidious method of privacy invasion Microsoft employs is the “Windows Live ID” (formerly Microsoft .NET Passport). The Windows Live ID collects data from the majority of Microsoft networks including MSN, Hotmail, and Xbox Live, and stores them in a central database. This data includes email addresses, generic personal information (name, age, etc), your favorites (books, video games, gadgets, etc), address books and contact lists (so your friends can be exploited too!), and much more. Microsoft then takes this data and generates ads targeted specifically to you.
4. Accenture
Accenture takes the forth sport on this list for their growing reputation in expanding digital dossiers and accepting a $10 billion dollar contract with the United States Department of Homeland Security to build a surveillance system that tracks visitors, to, from, and within the United States. The system calls for extensive fingerprints and photographs of all visa wavier travelers and non-naturalized U.S. residents. The system is also experimenting in futuristic technologies such as biometrics via iris scanning and facial recognition. So not only does Accenture know your credit history and previous court dates (even if only jury duty), they also know what you look like.
3. Acxiom
Dubbed as the premiere source of addresses and telephone numbers for telemarketers and mass mailers, Acxiom has a reputation of collecting data better than anyone else. Acxiom boasts records on millions of Americans including drug test and criminal histories, education data, and the popular “Suspected Terrorist Watchlist” available at a premium price. The company claims this data is to help employers weed out untruthful applicants and illegal employees, but often the information is used to create very targeted ads by advertisers.
2. Google
It seems the only thing growing faster than Google’s control of online searches is their database which they hope will eventually hold information on every internet user in the world. Google boasts databases big enough to permanently save the countless number of searches internet users make each and every day. The information Google stores on its users is great enough to create a virtual identity equipped with information ranging from favorite flavors of ice cream to sexual fantasies. And who can forget Google’s infamous eye in the sky, also known as Google maps. How scary of a thought is this: a group of people monitoring servers in California know everything you did yesterday, your major plans for the rest of the week, and where you live. To top it off, Google offers services such as GMail and Web Accelator that can store even more information about your personal life. Unfortunately, however, that isn't the worst of Googles privacy offenses.
Google’s most prominent form of data assimilation lies in their cookies. Where most websites set cookies to expire in a few days (or in rare cases a few months) Google configures their cookies to expire in 30 years. Google claims this gestation period is to gather information to provide users with more accurate search results and protect Google from denial of service attacks and other cyber-crimes, but the simple truth is Google is gathering your information and has the storage space to create a very detailed picture of your online activity.
1. ChoicePoint
ChoicePoint, a marketing conglomerate, wins our coveted George Orwell award as the company most likely to be watching you right now; i.e., Big Brother. ChoicePoint maintains more than 17 billion records on 220 million people with topics ranging from social security numbers to DNA samples. The majority of ChoicePoint’s information is sold to the highest bidder which more often than not happens to be a representative of the United States government, a leading American company, or a Nigerian fraud group. In addition to their willingness to sell private information to questionable sources, another factor that makes ChoicePoint the biggest privacy threat is the company's failure to provide a high level of data security.
In 2005 ChoicePoint announced that approximately 160,000 users in their database had various forms of sensitive information compromised. This breach in security resulted in more than 750 cases of full blown identify theft.
Conclusion
This list of the worst ten copmanies for privacy invasion and data mining is intended to highlight some of the worst actors among big business. While this exposure on its own cannot make a big difference in causing companies to change their policy, by having citizens and internet users who are more aware and concerned about the threats posed by data mining, real change can actually occur. So if this article leaves you with anything, I encourage you to become more educated about the privacy policies of the companies you do business with, and consider making consumer decisions on the basis of what you learn.
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Comments
very interesting ...
Posted by: Shareware Software | Feb 2, 2007 7:04:34 PM
You have no idea what your talking about. I don't understand why Acxiom or Google is on your list. Name one time they have done anything to invade one's privacy.
Posted by: NotSureWhyYouWantMyName? | Feb 2, 2007 7:18:36 PM
http://www.mgapparel.com doesn't employ any of those tactics. Shop for some cool t-shirts with no fear. :^D
Posted by: MGApparel | Feb 2, 2007 7:29:57 PM
Repeat after me: Cookies do not track people. Googles cookies store information from google, readable only by google. Setting the expiry date of the cookie 30 years in the future just means that whatever's in the cookie (which is pretty damned small) won't be lost if you don't visit google again for a week, or a month; or 29 years.
Posted by: Guy | Feb 2, 2007 7:55:05 PM
Google does have some amazing algorithms to determine your internet usage. If you're a registered user, they probably know more about your internet usage than you do.
BUT
They were the only people that stood up to the courts while the gov't threatened them to give up user queries. Every other company asked folded.
I personally know that the Google big-wigs would gladly go to jail before betraying their users.
Posted by: paranoia | Feb 2, 2007 8:40:01 PM
Google collects the most amount of data in the US. They even go through your email to show you "relevant ads".
Their "Dont do evil" tagline temps people into lowering their guards.
I remember the famous dialogue that Kevin Spacey spoke in that famous movie "The Usual Suspects".
"the greatest trick the devil ever played, is proving to the world that he does not exist".
google gives me that un-easy feeling..
Posted by: aj | Feb 2, 2007 9:48:44 PM
WTF? How about Experian, Transunion, Equifax, your local bank, the FBI's TIA program? Google and Microsoft? Are you KIDDING me? Idiots.
Posted by: Michael | Feb 2, 2007 9:57:09 PM
"the greatest trick the devil ever played, is proving to the world that he does not exist".
google gives me that un-easy feeling..
Posted by: zzz | Feb 2, 2007 10:38:07 PM
Yeaaah, you might want to actually understand cookies before you go blabbing on about them. Because, you know, the internets that you asked for on Friday might not arrive until Monday, because of the cookies slowing down the tubes.
Apparently "Business Intelligence" is an oxymoron around here.
Posted by: Adrian | Feb 3, 2007 3:12:36 AM
The vast majority of this post is simply ill-informed paranoia. If Google and Microsoft tracking your web usage is your biggest worry, then you need to get out of your house and look around at some of the real injustices in the world.
Posted by: David | Feb 3, 2007 3:52:33 AM
Even if someone knows every little bit about my
life, I'd like to see them do something about it.
Posted by: tomgrier | Feb 3, 2007 5:25:34 AM
A very nice post, thank you!
Also, I think it is important to see the bigger picture in this whole post. It does not mean that the services you use are evil or that you are a moron for using them, it simply points out that there are companies out there, unhindered by ethics, that will do questionable things for money.
Raising awareness is never a bad thing. Knowledge is power.
Posted by: Mark | Feb 3, 2007 5:25:39 AM
Cookies track people. Period.
This does not mean that everyone can track your Google cookie. No. Only Google can. But this is the problem.
Besides your search terms, Google will also know your surfing habits. How? AdSense and Google Analyzer. With every ad Google shows to you they will also get know what site you are visiting (and they relate it to your search terms using this never expiring cookie).
Google Analyze will help site owners to collect statistics about site usage. But Google will get the big picture and also again thanks to the google cookie your detailed surf habits.
Now let say you also have account in Orkut or Gmail. Then Google pretty much knows who you are. Google knows who are your friends and also knows what are your interests.
If this does not sound at least a little scary to you then what would?
Posted by: Kris | Feb 3, 2007 5:35:25 AM
A rather incomplete list. While certainly your online footprints are important, the fact that you complete miss direct marketing firms and credit card companies with their databases of consumer activities means that you're not trying hard enough here to think of who's watch you.
For example, when I first started working in Boston, I worked at a firm called Epsilon Data Management (since been bought and sold a few times), which owned (yes, owned) the American Express credit card transaction database. Everything anyone had ever bought on their AmEx was in our database. The company had even hired people to key in the early stuff (so we had the first ever transaction by AmEx, nay, any credit card: a dinner bill, 1954). Now image what sort of picture that you can build about a person from that?
EDM also ran campaigns for other companies, so if a car company wanted to offer a special deal to people in Iowa who lived with in 15 miles of a dealership, with x income, y debt, z kids, we'd say # of dogs, and what hair color? We'd match the data that they'd supply us with other databases that we'd have on file.
Now think about banks and what they'd know about you, think about grocery stores and what they know about you, think about what the US Post Office knows about you (yes they do sale mailing lists), think about what your address says about you and don't bother putting on a tin foil hat because that will only get you coupons for aluminum foil in the mail.
Posted by: Hank | Feb 3, 2007 6:26:40 AM
AOL is notoriously bad.
Posted by: Yola | Feb 3, 2007 6:38:59 AM
Very nice list and information about these companies.
Posted by: Son Nguyen | Feb 3, 2007 7:29:25 AM
of course AOHell is notoriously bad. their internet service is bad enough to make someone want to throw their computer out of a window from a 20 story building. i would wager that any site we go to is going to have some sort of information on them about us. that is why disabling cookies and using a secure browser such as firefox is EXTREMELY essential in this day and age. i recommend using firefox with the trackmenot extension applied, because that keeps sites from being able to track where you go online.
Posted by: graphicartist2k5 | Feb 3, 2007 10:04:02 AM
>And who can forget Google’s infamous eye in the sky, also known as Google maps. How scary of a thought is this: a group of people monitoring servers in California know everything you did yesterday, your major plans for the rest of the week, and where you live.
What are you talking about? My house was built 3 years ago and it's still not showing up on GoogleMaps. In some cases that 'eye in the sky' is a helicopter that took pictures days, months, and years ago. Research the recent fly-overs in Australia.
And you must not forget that google refused to give search data to 3rd parties, including the government in 2006... the only search engine not to do so.
Do some research before you compile a list as such... google should not be on this list. period.
Posted by: jeremy | Feb 3, 2007 12:42:48 PM
Who cares. I'm not buying any of the the crap they're supposedly advertising to me online.
Posted by: Chris Tough | Feb 3, 2007 3:24:54 PM
Tools- internet options- privacy- sites-
any tracking cookie- block
Nuff said
Posted by: bloedme | Feb 3, 2007 3:57:57 PM
This is retarded. The only reason they added google to their list was to get more hype.
Posted by: This sucks | Feb 3, 2007 4:13:07 PM
"They even go through your email to show you "relevant ads"."
So do spam filters you stupid cunt. Better not have one of those the big bad company may spy on me. Seriously this is the dumbest thing I've read for quiet some time.
P.S. Cookies are read only and domain specific. They don't track shit.
Posted by: stupid | Feb 3, 2007 4:31:47 PM
google were the only ones who stood up to government demands? Ever heard of China? They knelt and blew in two seconds and showed what they stood for.
Posted by: joe schomoe | Feb 3, 2007 4:35:44 PM
This article must have been written by a boomer.
I think maybe they're the last generation on earth to think that anyone has any personal privacy, anywhere ... and maybe the last one to care about it one way or the other.
Big Brother owns my buying habits, my surfing habits ... maybe yeah. But not my soul, that's up to me.
Posted by: seachnasaigh | Feb 3, 2007 7:08:58 PM
Hmmm. What I find humorous is that this article warns us of Big Brother spying on us--and yet it's posted on a site where we can bookmark it or have the comment section remember our personal info (i.e. set up cookies)!
Posted by: Potatohead | Feb 3, 2007 8:13:46 PM
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