Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
have made accessing many public records quick and inexpensive, and there are a lot of
good purposes to which we can put all that information. Before a school hires a teacher,
it can check the candidate's criminal record to ensure there are no convictions for child
abuse. Before a transit system hires a bus driver, it can check the applicant's driving
record. Before moving to a new city, you can check out the crime rate of the neighbor-
hood you're interested in.
Other uses of public records may not be as laudable. Thanks to information tech-
nology, it's easier than ever to learn a lot about someone's wealth. For most people, their
home is their principal asset. As we've already mentioned, you can visit Zillow.com, type
in the address of someone's house, and quickly learn Zillow's estimate of the house's
worth, based on information about the size of the house (a public record), the selling
price of the house (a public record), and recent sales of similar houses in the neighbor-
hood (also public records).
Private organizations, too, maintain extensive records of our activities. Databases
store information about the purchases we make with our credit cards, the groceries we
buy at a discount with our loyalty cards, the DVDs we rent, the calls we make with our
cell phones, and much more. The companies collecting this information use it to bill
us. They also can use this information to serve us better. For example, Amazon uses
information about book purchases to build profiles of its customers. With a customer
profile, Amazon can recommend other books the customer may be interested in buying.
On the other hand, companies may share information about our purchases with other
companies that then send us junk mail for products we have no interest in buying.
Often people voluntarily disclose information to private organizations. Product reg-
istration forms and contest entries often ask consumers to reveal a great deal of personal
information. I once received a product preference survey from Procter & Gamble; it said,
in part:
Your opinions matter to us. That's why we've selected you to participate in one of
the most important consumer research surveys we'll do this year. Whether or not
you have completed one of our surveys in the past, you can help us continue to
create the products that meet your needs. Simply answer the following questions,
provide your name and address, and mail it back to us. That way, we will be able to
contact you if there are any special offers that might be of interest to you.
The questionnaire asked about my family's use of nasal inhalants, coffee, peanut
butter, orange juice, laundry detergent, fabric softener, household cleaner, deodorant,
toothpaste, detergents, skin care and hair care products, cosmetics, mouthwash, diapers,
laxatives, and disposable briefs. It provided a list of 60 leisure activities, ranging from
various sports to travel to gambling, and asked me to choose the three activities most
important to my family. It also asked my date of birth, the sex and age of everyone living
in my home, my occupation, the credit cards we used, and our annual family income. If
I had returned the questionnaire (which I didn't), Procter & Gamble would have been
free to use this information any way it wished.
Many of us voluntarily share information about our activities by posting messages
and uploading photos to social network sites like Facebook. These sites make it easy to
 
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