SKASS@drew.bitnet (Steve Kass) (12/30/90)
Lotus Development Corporation has a new product due out in 1991,
called "Household Marketplace." It's a database on CDROM. It has the
estimated income and a profile of the buying habits of 120 million US
residents. That's a high percentage of the US population -- the odds
are pretty good that YOU are in the Lotus database.
A Lotus spokesman has said that the company is concerned about privacy
issues, so to help prevent misuse of the data only legitimate
businesses can get the disk. With easy access to a laser printer, a
POBox, and/or a fax machine, however, it is hard to see how Lotus can
determine the legitimacy of anyone, however, and I'm sure that with
minor effort almost anyone will be able to purchase Marketplace. The
cost, by the way, is under $1000 with quarterly updates available.
The database does not contain any of the data covered by the Fair
Credit Practices Act so Lotus is under no legal obligation to let you
see what they are saying about you. In fact, during interviews they
have said that there is NO WAY for an individual to review their
personal data, nor are there any provisions to make corrections on
what is recorded.
Lotus will remove anyone from their database who writes to them.
Send a letter to:
Lotus Development Corp.
Attn: Market Name Referral Service
55 Cambridge Parkway
Cambridge, MA 02142
----- additional comments by Larry Seiler -----
Folks,
I recently forwarded a message about a new Lotus product -- a database
on CDROM of 120 million US residents with their estimated incomes and
buying profiles. Someone questioned whether Lotus is really doing
this, so I checked by calling Lotus and speaking to someone in
pre-sales service.
It really is true. Lotus is still gearing up to sell their "Household
Marketplace" product, and it really does give information on
individual people, not just regional statistical summaries. I learned
the following (and I asked for literature, so I'll soon know even
more):
1) Yes, it really *DOES* have names and addresses of individuals.
2) They have divided up the database by regions, and you specify the
region you are interested in when you buy the product. That explains
how they could have 120 million people in their database and still
sell you just 1 CD (or a few) for your purchase price.
3) They also have a "Business Marketplace" CD with data on seven
million US businesses.
I forebore yelling at the sales-type who handled my call, merely
asking if there was a place to write with comments about the service.
Apparently the sales types haven't heard of the controversy the
product is raising, since she replied that several different reports
can be generated by the product, and some of them do have space for
comments.
GREAT! So not only do they have the audacity to print an estimate of
your income (which could be quite damaging if they get it wrong, and
is an intrusion into your privacy if they get it right), they also
have space on the disk for arbitrary comments about you -- and they'll
be selling this data in volume to mass marketing companies across the
country!
In interviews, Lotus has said that individuals will NOT be able to
correct their own entries, or even see what they are. I didn't try to
confirm this in my call to Lotus, but I did confirm that the person
who reported it -- Rich Salz of BBN -- has an excellent reputation on
the internet. Also, everything he said that I checked with Lotus is
absolutely accurate. Further, the {Wall Street Journal} has reported
on it -- saying that the database has ages, marital status, and other
such personal data as well.
So I believe it, and you should to, since it is going to affect your
life. Remember -- a database of 120 million US residents comes to
almost half the people in the country. Considering that the database
is probably biased toward those with higher incomes, the chances are
*really good* that anyone able to electronically read this message is
in the database.
What can you do about it? A couple of things. Lotus has said that
they'll omit from their database anyone who asks. Therefore, start by
writing to the address below. Tell them that you don't want to be in
the database, and tell them exactly what you think of their database.
Second, pass this message along to anyone whom you think might care.
To me, this is not just a matter of privacy. Lotus is going to sell
information behind our backs -- we are not allowed to dispute their
data or even know what it is. Worse, Lotus is going to sell rumors
about our income. Still worse, they will do it on a scale never
before achieved. This should not be tolerated. Please help to stop
Lotus.
Thanks,
Larry Seiler
[Moderator's Note: The {Wall Street Journal}, November 13, 1990
discussed this in detail in a story on page B-1 entitled "Lotus - New
Program Spurs Fears Privacy Could be Undermined". WSJ has in the past
complained about TELECOM Digest reprinting their stuff, so it is
omitted here. See my reply in this issue, 'Much Ado About Nothing". I
hope telecom-priv will pick up this discussion at this point and
allow it to continue there. PAT]