Online Shopping Cart Company Fined For Selling User Data

TechDirt reports that an online shopping cart company has been fined by the FTC for selling user data to telemarketers and junk mailers without permission. Apparently, even if the website used to purchase something has a privacy policy and "opt out" boxes, the third-party who actually facilitates the shopping cart doesn't abide by those policies. That's a problem that must be addressed: any company who collects and sells a user's data must be required to inform the user of those events. Further, the penalty in this case was only $9,000 - the amount the firm profitied from this action. Considering that nearly 1 million users had their data sold without their permission, this punishment is laughable, and does little to deter future infractions.

Technorati tag: privacy