I don't know if you happened to see the article about the hospital now buying data from Axciom and from MasterCard that was around a few days ago, and if not I did my take on this. We are at the hands of over abuse wtih consumer data and sadly I did say two years ago this would happen and I'm a victim of it myself.
This post got attention and had Axciom and MasterCard all over my blog as again I'm addressing the data sellng epidemic. It was funny that Axciom decided to even reach out on Twitter and they received some good tweets back from me about how flawed their data is and so on. It's not just them and I mentioned a couple other instances with other software companies.
Oh Crap, Now Hospitals Are Now Buying Data From Ac...
So here we go with a hospital now that has bought up this data and plans to have doctors rummage through it and find lapsing gym renewals, bad food you eat and so on. The doctors don't want this anymore than we do but the hospital can score you with this and then score the doctor on how he's scoring you and then sell it. Obviously being a hospital it has to be sold to anohter HIPAA entit but there's plent of of those like insurance companies who would love to have it.
I did two post last year warning everyone about the steroid marketing from MasterCard that was coming, first with the announcement of their new e-commerce center and the search for data scientists and later when they created the customer marketing bureau.
Long and short, anyone, bank company, etc. who has data out there has cash in their pockets to burn.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/...
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/...
I also did a guest post from a former Wall Street Quant, saying the same thing and you can read that here as well as this a big case of "code hosing".
I have started a campaign to get a law passed and I have been writing the FTC and a couple members of Congress or a couple of years now on this topic. All privacy laws have failed as step one has been missed, we have no index on who they all are and what I'm working on is a campagn to get a law passed in Congress to require all data sellers to buy a license to create an index on who they are for starters. This would give law enforcement an easy out to shut one down too if found selling/distributing without a license.
Part two would be for all data sellers, banks, companies to provide consumers with a listing on either their own site or on a federal site updated with what kind of data they sell and who they sell to. You get queried, sold and requeried so much anymore you don't know where to start to find the mistakes that deny you acces to a loan, medical services, etc.
California just tried again and failed to pass a lawto curb and stop data selling. Again big problem is who are they? We know a lot of them but there's many sleepers under the carpet and they sell credit information about you and I right and left and are not classified as a "credit agency" so they make millions.
I have a little campaign going and I have lot more over there to read about how insurance comapnies run software to identify your current "state of mind" when you talk with their call centers and of course they can sell that too as the behavior folks are out there waiting for it. I also talk about how the health insurers are already buying your credit card transactions so now's the time to at least make a move on this and get a licensing provision started as that in inself will make some of sellers more accountable if they know someone might be asking about what consumer data they are selling.
I know this is crappy stuff and I'm trying to do something about it and if we don't and the way MasterCard is moving on selling all our transaction data, anyone with the money will be able to buy a copy of our transactions just like they order up a credit report but of course there's a lot more at risk when someone is looking into your everyday purchases.
Google too has partnered with Axciom, the big data seller and so be aware of that as well.
A word to the wise here of course is that if you want some privacy, cash is king. Also be very careful of any Facebook offerings as this week all finally became aware that there's nothing you can do with the code masters at Facebook other than quit and then even sometimes there's fragments of you over there even if you are not on Facebook if someone makes a reference to you as well.
Again I used to write software and at Facebooka data scientists got a littel full of himself and wanted some recognition and being a nerd, and they don't think like a consumer all the time, he wanted some kudos which backfired on him as wel all know but just be assured stuff like that goes on every day at Facebook Google and more.
Here's my campaign if anyone wants to read and maybe kick in a few dollars as mimum is $5 so every bit will help me and I will be providing more updates. Like I said again I have been working on this for a couple of years already and I'm just trying to get some help to keep it going. It's frustrating too with the FTC as they just focus on verbiage while computer code runs hog wild all over the place with your and my data.
Privacy law - require all data sellers to be licensed
I know this is ugly stuff but I'm giving it a go and it's better than doing nothing and again I'll be udpating my progress as it goes along. I'm in front of a couple members of Congress on this and am working on more of them.