From: Steve Schear <schear@lvdi.net>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 07:33:03 +0800
To: Declan McCullagh <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Don't lie to the marketers or Feds! from ZDNET
In-Reply-To: <v03007802b0c302dcce4d@[204.254.22.15]>
Message-ID: <v03102802b0c3537ee3ea@[208.129.55.202]>
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At 3:15 PM -0500 12/21/1997, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/print/971215/264108.html
>
>>For Social Security Number, the EPIC page recommends using
>>a number, which won't be reprinted here, used on "sample"
>>cards decades ago. The figuring: "Most clerks probably
>>won't recognize it as a fake" and it won't interfere with
>>other Social Security numbers.
>>
>>For addresses, the EPIC page suggests using hometown parks,
>>city halls and police stations. It specifically suggests
>>the address of Comiskey Park in Chicago. Makes one wonder
>>how White Sox officials feel about the prospect of getting
>>extra junk mail and spam really destined for disciples of
>>EPIC's peculiar freedom of information act. What crime
>>against the common good did Jerry Reinsdorf commit except
>>to sign Albert Belle to an ungodly contract undermining
>>baseball owner solidity against rising salaries?
>>
>>For telephone numbers, the recommendation is
>>1-202-224-3121. That turns out to be the switchboard of the
>>U.S. Congress. If this is intended to send some sort of
>>message to solons about the loss of control of personal
>>information, it's likely to be wholly lost. The only people
>>it will punish are operators handling incoming calls at the
>>Capitol. They will only regard the extra calls as more
>>wrong number calls they have to handle. They will have no
>>way to figure out that this is some sort of subgrassroots
>>effort to gum up the works. And they will certainly have no
>>way to provide statistics to Congress on the result.
>>
>>The EPIC page is, in that last case, urging Americans to
>>waste taxpayer dollars, for no clear purpose.
>>
>>On a larger scale, the EPIC document only exacerbates the
>>issue it tries to solve. The answer to the loss of control
>>of personal information on the Internet is not to
>>contribute instead to a boom in unreliable data.
>>

Of course it is.  It hit these companies where it hurts most, their wallet when they try and sell data which purchsers find unreliable and refuse to purchse again or let leak to others thinking of purchasing.  If these companies cannot accurately collect data which customers really don't want to give them (and they may not have a lawfull requirement to request) anyway they may eventually stop asking since they're getting garbage.

The cure for SPAM is more SPAM.

--Steve