Privacy matters: The RadioShack outcry offers a consumer lesson; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/17/15

Editorial Board, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Privacy matters: The RadioShack outcry offers a consumer lesson:

In its recent bankruptcy filings, the troubled electronics retailer listed customer information among its assets up for auction, including 13 million email addresses and 65 million physical addresses in its database. But outrage ensued from attorneys general in 25 states, including Pennsylvania, so RadioShack changed course and announced it would exclude the data from this week’s sale of 1,700 stores to Standard General...

Stores increasingly gather information on their customers, either by asking for it outright at checkout or, more deviously, by offering a chance to win a prize if they evaluate their service online. Consumers do so willingly, but often without thinking of what happens to the data, or how it can multiply...

However, the legal quandaries presented in the era of Big Data are just beginning, as are the potential abuses."