Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, CONSUMER PROTECTION NEWS—FTC Orders Data Brokerages to Provide Information on Data Collection, Use for Agency Study, (Dec 18, 2012)

By E. Darius Sturmer, J.D.

Pursuant to a December 14 Resolution Directing Use of Compulsory Process to Collect Information Regarding Data Brokers, the FTC issued orders on December 14 requiring nine data brokerage companies to provide the agency with information about how they collect and use data about consumers. The agency said that it will use the responses it receives to prepare a study on privacy practices in the data broker industry and to make recommendations on whether, and/or how, the industry could improve them.

Data brokers are companies that collect personal information about consumers from a variety of public and non-public sources and resell the information to other companies, the FTC clarified. Data brokers also provide data to enable their customers to better market their products and services. In many ways, the FTC explained, the data flows benefit consumers and the economy—for example, by enabling companies to prevent fraud.

In the orders, the FTC requests details about:

• the nature and sources of the consumer information the data brokers collect;

• how they use, maintain, and disseminate the information; and

• the extent to which the data brokers allow consumers to access and correct their information or to opt out of having their personal information sold.

The companies receiving an Order to File Special Report from the Commission included: 1) Acxiom, 2) Corelogic, 3) Datalogix, 4) eBureau, 5) ID Analytics, 6) Intelius, 7) Peekyou, 8) Rapleaf, and 9) Recorded Future. The companies are required to file their special reports with the agency by February 1, 2013.

The FTC’s action closely follows a call by the agency, in its March 2012 Privacy Report, for the data broker industry to improve the transparency of its practices.

News: ConsumerProtection Privacy FederalTradeCommissionNews