More on Finding Out What Others Know About Us

Here's my letter in today's Times, following up on Saturday's post (I'm happy it mentions the blog):

Re “It’s Tracking Your Every Move, and You May Not Even Know” (front page, March 26): You report that cellphone companies seldom disclose what information they collect about consumers. In fact, cellphone companies are not unique in that respect.

Your credit card company, landline phone company, grocery store (where you may have a discount card that enables the store to collect information about your purchases), Internet service provider and many other businesses may all have information about you.

Are you aware, except in general ways, of what they know about you?

Because Congress forced credit bureaus to make such information available to consumers, we can learn what credit reporting agencies have in their records about us. Unless legislators take similar steps concerning other businesses, we are unlikely to discover the contents of their files on us.

JEFF SOVERN
Jamaica, Queens, March 26, 2011

The writer is a professor at St. John’s University School of Law and co-coordinator of the Consumer Law and Policy Blog.