COMMENTARY: How far does non-privacy go?

c. 1998 Religion News Service (Tom Ehrich is the author of”On a Journey,”daily meditations available through Journey Publishing Co. If you have feedback or want to suggest a question for a future column, send e-mail to: journey(AT)interpath.com) UNDATED _ I log on to the Internet to check basketball scores and I’m immediately handed a”cookie.” This”cookie”isn’t […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is the author of”On a Journey,”daily meditations available through Journey Publishing Co. If you have feedback or want to suggest a question for a future column, send e-mail to: journey(AT)interpath.com)

UNDATED _ I log on to the Internet to check basketball scores and I’m immediately handed a”cookie.” This”cookie”isn’t chocolate chip, but a small piece of computer code the Web site wants to place on my computer’s hard drive. If I accept it, the Web site will be able to glean my e-mail address, certain personal information and my computer usage, and sell it to others.


Welcome to the brave new world of data-gleaning.

We have known for years that if you bought, say, an upscale magazine like The New Yorker, you would receive a blizzard of upscale catalogs. Buy once from LL Bean, and your mailbox will never be empty again. But the gleaning and warehousing of data have gone far beyond the selling of subscriber lists.

My local supermarket, for example, wants me to use my VIC Card (“Very Important Customer”) when I shop. Its aim is to correlate my name and my computer-scanned purchases. I am being”profiled.”My profile is a marketable commodity.

Every day, hosts of data-gleaners read public statistics like marriage licenses, births, bankruptcy filings, divorce proceedings, home equity loans, mortgage foreclosures and real estate listings. They read club rosters and church directories. Data is fed into computers, correlated with other data, and then sold for 25 cents a name to anyone who pays. Name-buyers range from the benign to the predatory. Data, like money, knows no home.

One data-gleaner, Metromail Corp., claims it has data on 103 million Americans, or some 95 percent of U.S. households. No wonder Metromail is a takeover target being pursued by Britain’s Great Universal Stores (which claims data on 780 million consumers worldwide) and American Business Information Inc., of Omaha, Neb.

How far does non-privacy go? A local resident still gets mail addressed to a former owner. The man must have had prostate problems, because his mail includes catalogs for prostate-related medical products, sexual-dysfunction products, and pornography. Did the physician sell his name? A support group? The maker of some product he bought in the depth of despair?

On the one hand, data-gleaning is smart business. Banks can avoid people with a history of delinquency. Advertisers and junk-mailers can avoid wasting their money and our time.

On the other hand, it’s frightening to be known so thoroughly by strangers.

Turn 17 and have a good scholastic record, and you receive unsolicited brochures from colleges across the country. Who sold my son’s name to West Point, Brown, Princeton and St. Olaf’s? Are the public schools that hard up for funds?


Massive databases convert stray bits of data into highly prized lists. Shop at a Christian bookstore, and your name goes on a list. If you also live in a certain ZIP code, you’re pure gold: an”evangelical country clubber,”or a”Catholic posh nester.”If you also have a wealthy parent who just died, a second home you just mortgaged, a Mercedes on order and a child ready for college, watch out.

Post a job on the Internet, and data-gleaners will tell your competitors what you’re up to. Post a resume _ with your name, address, education, credentials and aspirations _ and data-gleaners will elect you to the 25-cents-a-name hall of fame.

Worst of all, get in trouble, and you’re carrion. Independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr wants the computer data on Monica Lewinsky’s book purchases. I doubt many will complain about the new Internet site that discloses the names, legal histories and current addresses of sex-offenders. But extend the data-gleaning logic: How about a databank on deadbeat dads? Or people whose cars were repossessed? Or folks who bounced a check? Or teachers who got low evaluations? Or workers who got laid off?

Not only do thieves and lawyers scan obituaries for unattended houses and property about to change hands, but data-gleaners pounce on happy news, too. It’s eerie. Who sells the names of pregnant women? Their obstetrician? hospital? birthing instructor?

I doubt this situation will improve. It’s like traffic accidents: a cost of modernity. But we can be wary of what information we divulge. And to the extent we are”decision-makers”(in data-glean-speak), we can refuse to sell the names of people who entrust us with their business, medical needs, children or faith.

DEA END EHRICH

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