A U.S. senate hearing today could put in jeopardy the issue of self regulation of consumer privacy. The press release by the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation can be found here.
In a nutshell, the practice of post transaction marketing has impacted millions of consumers with what is considered to be a "scam" engaged in by over 450 websites and their rev-share partners, Affinion, Vertrue and Webloyalty.
The committee is investigating over 1.4 billion dollars in recurring revenues charged by these companies and shared with their partner sites. Shockingly, some of the most respected companies are on the list of offenders. The lead story by the Huffington Post can be found here along with a list of the top offenders.
In the face of FTC hearings next month on the issue of privacy concerns and self regulation by the industry, these actions do nothing to instill consumer confidence.
How can we possibly self regulate our own when major players participate in questionable practices?
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1 comment:
This kind of sneaky behavior has been going on in the offline world for decades and congress has done nothing to address it.
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