Opting in to Privacy Problems
Brian McWilliams, author of Spam Kings, writes for the O'Reilly Network about how list brokers are currently buying and selling private information on millions of people, including their home address, telephone number, date of birth, internet protocol (IP) address, and prescription history.
Many list brokers are now cutting deals with e-commerce sites and internet marketing firms for data that includes home addresses, phone numbers, and an IP address corresponding to each list entry as evidence that the customer data was voluntarily provided by visitors to an online store or other web site.Armed with proof that their lists contain only "opt in" addresses, some spammers are able to buy permission from large internet service providers to email their subscribers. As long as subscriber complaints stay below a set threshold, the spammer can remain on the ISP's white list.
However, the availability of confidential data at one spam list-broker's site suggests that some list brokers and web sites are playing fast and loose with the privacy of internet shoppers.
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