Privacy Resolutions for the New Year 116
Chris Hoofnagle writes "EPIC has released ten privacy resolutions for the New Year. In addition to losing weight next year, lose all those data brokers who are after your bits."
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Privacy Resolutions for the New Year
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"Life is a garment we continuously alter, but which never seems to fit." -- David McCord
No more credit card offers! (Score:5, Informative)
I called up the phone number in step 5 and was notified of a web site that would remove credit card offers and insurance offers for 5 years or permanently!
Guess what I signed up for?
https://www.optoutprescreen.com/
So sweet. Less junk mail is a good thing.
Re:Cash purchases (Score:5, Informative)
If you work for a retailer and are forced to ask, ask politely if the client wish to give some info. I'm just a client and I really appreciate when I'm asked instead of trying to answering their threatening demands.
/.ed site. here is the text (Score:3, Informative)
1. Engage in "privacy self defense." Don't share any personal information with businesses unless it is absolutely necessary (for delivery of an item, etc.). Don't give your phone number, address, or name to retail stores. If you do, they can sell that information or use it for telemarketing and junk mail. If they ask for your information, say "it's none of your business," or give "John Doe, 555-1212, 123 Main St." Don't return product warranty cards. Don't complete consumer surveys even if they appear to be anonymous. Profilers can build in barely-perceptible codes that link you to the survey, and this data goes straight to direct marketers.
2. Pay with cash where possible. Electronic transactions leave a detailed dossier of your activities that can be accessed by the government or sold to telemarketers. Paying with cash is one of the best ways to protect privacy and stay out of debt.
3. Install anti-spyware, anti-virus, and firewall software on your computer. If your computer is connected to the Internet, it is a target of malicious viruses and spyware. There are free spyware-scanning utilities available online, and anti-virus software is probably a necessary investment if you own a Windows-based PC. Firewalls keep unwanted people out of your computer and detect when malicious software on your own machine tries to communicate with others.
4. Use a temporary rather than a permanent change of address. If you move in 2005, be sure to forward your mail by using a temporary change of address order rather than a permanent one. The junk mailers have access to the permanent change of address database; they use it to update their lists. By using the temporary change of address, you'll avoid unwanted junk mail.
5. Opt out of prescreened offers of credit. By calling 1-888-567-8688, you can stop receiving those annoying letters for credit and insurance offers. This is an important step for protecting your privacy, because those offers can be intercepted by identity thieves.
6. Choose Supermarkets that Don't Use Loyalty Cards. Be loyal to supermarkets that offer discounts without requiring enrollment in a loyalty club. If you have to use a supermarket shopping card, be sure to exchange it with your friends or with strangers.
7. Opt out of financial, insurance, and brokerage information sharing. Be sure to call all of your banks, insurance companies, and brokerage companies and ask to opt out of having your financial information shared. This will cut down on the telemarketing and junk mail that you receive.
8. Request a free copy of your credit report by visiting http://www.annualcreditreport.com. All Americans are now entitled to a free credit report from each of the three nationwide credit reporting agencies, Experian, Equifax, and Trans Union. You can engage in a free form of credit monitoring by requesting one of your three reports every four months. By staggering your request, you can check for errors regularly and identify potential problems in your credit report before you lose out on a loan or home purchase. Currently, these reports are available to residents of most western states. By September 2005, all Americans will have free access to their credit report.
9. Enroll all of your phone numbers in the Federal Trade Commission's Do-Not-Call Registry. The Do-Not-Call Registry (http://www.donotcall.gov or 1-888-382-1222) offers a quick and effective shield against unwanted telemarketing. Be sure to enroll the numbers for your wireless phones, too.
10. File a complaint. If you believe a company has violated your privacy, contact the Federal Trade Commission, your state Attorney General, and the Better Business Bureau. Successful investigations improve privacy protections for all consumers.
Re:Who gives a fucking rat's ass? (Score:4, Informative)
Disposable identities (Score:5, Informative)
Or... Give them disposable information that allows you to cease hearing from them, or know when/if they have distributed your information without consent.
To this end, I highly recommend Spam Gourmet [spamgourmet.com] which allows the on-the-fly creation of disposable email addresses.
If you walk into McDonalds and really want to sign up for their win a free cheeseburger contest, you give them an email address like cheesy.n.youraccount@spamgourmet.com and you will only ever receive 'n' emails to that address before it dies.
Of course if you then receive emails from Pizza Hut, you know exactly where they got the email from.
If you never want to hear from the person, give them this address: me@privacy.net.
Any emails sent to that address receive a reply to the effect of: "whoever gave you this address didn't want you to have theirs".
Useful stuff!
Re:Paranoia? (Score:2, Informative)
We Can Take Back Our Privacy! (Score:3, Informative)
The enduring problem is information assymetry--they know how to collect data about you in subtle ways. For instance, just giving a clerk your telephone number enables the company to call Acxiom or Experian and use "enhancement" to get your real name, addresss, and email. If we want to slow this down, we need to become more costive with our data. Merry Xmas, Chris from EPIC.
These guys are pretty bogus (Score:3, Informative)
Despite all their privacy ranting on how the world is trying to guess the size of your penis....
Note the link for http://www.annualcreditreport.com
actually links to:
http://www.epic.org/privacy/fcra/freereportr
That's right... they redirect, and that link only. Hmm... they aren't doing any sort of tracking are they?
Put the tin foil hats back on, and get back in the blast shelter.
Re:Paranoia? (Score:3, Informative)
Nope don't do the warranty card. Do read it, but, 99.9% of the time, it is NOT needed to get your warranty, and it is used for NOTHING more than compiling information on you. I used to work for Acxiom years back...a company in Conway ,AR that has information on about 98% of the people in the US. This was 7 years ago...they are working worldwide now. They told us about the warranty card thing...back then, I looked...most of them were pre-addressed to the same address.
Acxiom, which integrates data from warranty cards, change of address, states that sell drivers license info...and any other source...uses all this to find you. They use this to 'clean' other companies' databases to track you. They sell this info..to pretty much whoever wants it. CC companies, insurance companies...and most all the credit bureaus. Hell, I think they used to have financial ties to Trans Union itself.
One of my last projects there, was to take data they got from ordering telephone books from the states...cutting off the binders, and running them through optical scanners. I was writing code to put it into a relational database to run against the big iron they had there....
So, no, don't be paranoid...but, do be aware...your data...any of it is being used and looked at and sold by someone.