Natasha Singer reports:
The multibillion-dollar data brokerage industry, a growing force in online marketing, is drawing intensified government scrutiny.
On Wednesday, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, opened an extensive investigation of nine leading information brokers. Because Americans now conduct much of their daily business online, the senator said he was concerned that “an unprecedented amount” of personal, medical and financial information about people could be collected, mined and sold, to the potential detriment of consumers.
Read more on the New York Times.
It’s a shame that Rep. Markey never uploaded the responses to the inquiries the Bipartisan Privacy Caucus sent to data brokers in July, as their letter has some overlap with the Senate’s inquiry but substantially different questions, too. In the meantime, the FTC obtained a settlement with Equifax over the sale of some consumers’ information.
So we now have the House, the Senate, and the FTC all looking at data brokers and privacy. How about sharing info and resources, folks?
Image credit: File photo. 
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