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Shut the Feck Up: Trans Union Posted Mon Apr 23 12:45:49 2001 by sbaldwin By Splat Lost amongst the other items that make up tech news these days was a small article about how Trans Union, one of the big bad credit agencies, lost a court decision to sell your name, my name, and thousands of other names of people who have too much or too little credit to spammers because Trans Union doesn't make enough money to keep itself afloat. To illustrate this, let's use a comparison. Toysmart was going to sell the names of people who had signed up for the site. That was at least four or five people, and most of the time, those four or five people could opt out at the website. In reality, they probably had a few hundred thousand names, and Disney bailed them out because Toysmart's privacy policy said "we don't sell names" Disney hates a black eye. Trans Union, one of the three largest credit agencies in the United States and the owner of a database estimated to be at 190 million names, was told to stop selling the names of the people in said database. They've been doing this for NINE FECKING YEARS. There is no opt out. There is no opt in. There is no way out at all. And this involves me, you, and 190 million other people. Isn't anyone paying attention? Doesn't anyone see this as one of the largest privacy invasions ever done? They've been doing this for all these years, against the law. Trans Union has more information on you, the consumer, than the United States Government has, in many cases. Critics said Trans Union fought the case because the company knew that the longer the case dragged on, the more profits they could extract out of using this database. Hence dragging it out for nine years. For everyone that fears the Internet as a privacy risk, this is a reminder that it doesn't take a Web site to gather your information. All it takes is a visit to the supermarket, or applying for a credit card. And there isn't a thing you can do about it other than send a letter to your senator or congressman to enact real legislation that will stop this. Isn't anyone in the real press, like the New York Times, paying attention? Anyone?   Posted Comments: post a comment! Name: Email: Comment: Name: Email: Date: Tue May 1 03:15:45 2001 Comment: >and how do I find out about it? I think that you are entitled to a free credit report, one per year, from each kredit kop. You should try their web sites. Name: Email: Date: Sat Apr 28 03:46:45 2001 Comment: Bah, you're all amateurs. Dig on this. I bought a used vehicle, and had a wreck and totalled it after a year. My insurance covered all but $1,200.00 of it - never assume full coverage means full coverage. So, I went and bought another vehicle, using the same loan company. They put the balance owed on the first loan, the $1,200.00, on the new loan. I had a friend at work pull a credit report on me about 6 months later. It showed the first loan was a repo. I called the loan company, they said they'd straighten it out. A year later, I started getting letters from a collection agency, hired by the loan company, wanting money on the repo. Now I was really worried, and pissed. I finally got it straightened out, but, it's still something I think about - how much else is getting screwed up on my credit, and how do I find out about it? Name: No Count Bastard Email: fuku@peoplestampededandcattleraped.com Date: Tue Apr 24 00:55:07 2001 Comment: I recently had to correct my "credit report". I got the report from all three agencies and they all had errors and "random data" in them. How in hell do these bastards even stay in business? I would think that massive class-action lawsuits would have put them all six feet down years ago. Name: iamdubious Email: Date: Mon Apr 23 22:44:23 2001 Comment: Yeah me too. But, I do find a bank debit card (backed by MC or Visa) useful for airline, hotel, and rent a car reservations. Name: B Labor Email: Date: Mon Apr 23 15:54:18 2001 Comment: Dee Dee: u from the Ramones? The motel thing's not too hard..cash up front..your Id and bada bing badaboom..you're doin' the horizontal mambo Name: dee dee Email: Date: Mon Apr 23 15:33:45 2001 Comment: >See this is why I went to a total cash strategy about eight years ago..everthing is cash on the barrellhead..clean and NO paper trail. Me too, brother. Makes checking into a motel harder, but most of my trysts have recently been in the backs of cars, so what's the difference? Name: B Labor Email: Date: Mon Apr 23 14:34:02 2001 Comment: Re: Trans Union has more information on you, the consumer, than the United States Government has, in many cases." See this is why I went to a total cash strategy about eight years ago..everthing is cash on the barrellhead..clean and NO paper trail.all the best people moved to cash a long time ago Name: Enough Already Email: Date: Mon Apr 23 13:26:54 2001 Comment: "Trans Union has more information on you, the consumer, than the United States Government has, in many cases." Yeah, and unfortunately much of that information is wrong and it is nearly impossible to get them to change it. I went through hell for over a year trying to get incorrect information removed from my credit reports. Since I am a "junior", i.e. I have the same name as my father, much of his crappy credit ended up on my report. Then there was the incident where someone with a similar name (but not exact) living in another state had their stuff end up on my credit report. One of my friends had information from someone who used to live at the same address (many years before my friend lived there) show up on his credit report. Jeez, in this day and age you'd think they would use social security number as a positive identifier rather than just name/address. And to think that financial institutions use this information to make billion dollar lending decisions. May Trans Union, Equifax, and Experian all rot in hell.