Think the information you provide as part of your voter registration is secret? Think again:
Unknown to many voters, election officials sell the information to political parties and candidates, as well as to data collectors, who combine it with census data, purchasing histories, credit reports and magazine subscription lists.
In this way, George Bush and Wesley Clark can know the marital status, income level, race and even religious affiliation of voters they want to target for their campaign messages. They can also know whether a voter owns an SUV or subscribes to Soldier of Fortune magazine and buys lacy underwear from Victoria’s Secret.
So can anyone else who buys the lists.
And can just anyone in the world buy the lists without verifying their intentions? Why, yes they can.
(And no, I’m not a privacy freak by any stretch of the imagination — I’ve written my Social Security number in so many places that I’m under no illusions that it’s an impossible-to-discover-secret — but I’m not sure I’m all that happy that the state is helping marketers find out who I am and what I like, inadvertently or not.)
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