NP corp. use of customer info

[Paul Mackin]

On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Doug Millison wrote:

> http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/yr/mo/biztech/articles/11toysmart.html


> Tip of the iceberg. Public anxiety about internet privacy has focused 
> on rogue hackers, stalkers, and other Internet criminals -- thanks to 
> a less than aggressive computer industry and general reader press, 
> and corporate apologists who tend to spout the kind of reassuring 
> myths (no need to worry about corporations, it's those nasty 
> government agents or sui generis Unabomber crackpots we need to fear) 
> we've read recently here on the P-list -- but the  kind of activity 
> Toysmart is engaging in is where the action really is, although it 
> tends to go unnoticed unless the company falls under special 
> scrutiny, as Toysmart.com has in its bankruptcy proceedings.

Well, apparently the case does also focus on stalkers. The news articles
this morning said it was the industry's own self regulation entity
which urged the FTC to move in, the concern being for the continued
viablity of the all important customer information collection
process. But regarding stalkers, the spokesman for the self-regulation arm
raised the issue (not in the Times but in the Washington Post) of child
stalkers getting hold of the info. "If you are a predator, a child
predator, that wants to find out detailed senstive information about a
child, here is a list that apparently anyone can get." 

Regardless of whether one feels this later possiblity is likely given the 
cost of such lists, the subtext of the story is that there is a legit use
of this personal information in the overall process of unloading as much
merchandise on the naive customer as possible. It's only the crazies'
getting hold of it that the concern. 

Just asking.

By the way the reason this (particular) sort of thing "tends to go
unnoticed" is that it's only fairly recently that ecommerce firms have
been going into backruptcy in such great numbers.

	 P.