At 8:39 PM 9/6/95, David Neal wrote:

From the huge number of people in the database, it would seem that TRW is now marketing a subset of their credit records they keep on everyone. Does anyone else remember the flap over Lotus' product (Magellan) that was going to allow something similar?

The risks? This is the perfect database if you want to red-line your offerings. I'm sure others will have more creative answers.

About the Lotus Marketplace product of several years ago, many of us thought at the time that the furor was misdirected, and the result ultimately damaging to privacy concerns. Why? Because the ZIP code data is _already_ available to the mass marketers, etc. The Marketplace produce merely made it available to "the rest of us," allowing many people to have their eyes opened about what exists. By getting Lotus to pull the product, the public went back to sleep, lulled into the false sense of privacy that their ZIP codes were once against private. Privacy needs to be protected by keeping some things secret, not by passing laws limiting the records others can collect from public or voluntarily offered information. Don't get me wrong--I don't like TRW Credit, Equifax, TransUnion, or anyone else compiling "dossiers" on my spending habits, my travel itineraries, etc. But by using my VISA and MasterCard cards, and by agreeing to their terms and conditions, I am tacitly accepting that credit reporting agencies will have access to my transactions. If there is a "market for privacy," and this is something we've talked about before, then someone will offer "The Privacy Card." We can debate what this card might offer, randing from complete unlinkability (ecash protocols of various sorts) to non-reporting of records to the Big Three of credit reporting agencies. Even cards issued in the name of pseudonyms, of various sorts and backings. Should there be laws _against_ this kind of Privacy Card, we should fight these laws. But we should not lull ourselves into a false sense of security by adopting the unconstitutional and anti-liberty approach of having "Fair Credit Reporting Act" and "Data Privacy Act" sorts of laws. In my opinion, of course. --Tim May ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."