He said the companies involved will have to expend a substantial amount of resources to make sure the information is used in an appropriate manner once the standard is in place. Wayne Madsen, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, said Shelby is on to something with his concerns about CPexchange. James Grady, an associate analyst at Giga Information Group Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., said consumers should be concerned anytime organizations or companies agree to trade information. Consumers should question what information the companies collect, what they do with it and with whom they share that information, he said. One trend that has appeared in the past two to four months, according to Grady, is an increase in the number of companies that promise consumers that their personal information will only be shared with so-called authorized trading partners.
Consumers have to exact a higher standard out of the companies that they are doing business with.
Something along the lines of a privacy bill of rights is needed. For more coverage of this issue, visit Computerworld's Focus on Privacy page . Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Computerworld, Inc. is prohibited.