For years, RadioShack made a habit of collecting customers’ contact information at checkout. Now, the bankrupt retailer is putting that data on the auction block. A list of RadioShack assets for sale includes more than 65 million customer names and physical addresses, and 13 million email addresses. Bloomberg reports that the asset sale may include phone numbers and information on shopping habits as well...
As Bloomberg points out, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has argued that selling the data would be illegal under state law. Texas doesn’t allow companies to sell personal information in a way the violates their own privacy policies, and signage in RadioShack stores claims that “We pride ourselves on not selling our private mailing list.” Paxton believes that a data sale would affect 117 million people.
26 March 2015
Shopped at Radio Shack? Your data is for sale.
As reported by PC World:
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That seems totally unethical, and should be illegal. Good thing I haven't shopped at Radio Shack for more years than I can even estimate.
ReplyDeleteI stopped giving my phone number to merchants over 20 years ago. I just say no when asked. The only push back I ever got was a catalog store. The cashier said they wouldn't be able to mail me a catalog if I didn't give my number. I said that I didn't want their catalog anyway. She was shocked but rang up the item anyway. Radio Shack used to be particularly pushy. I remember them once asking for my name, address and phone number when I was just buying batteries. No, I said.
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