Is my phone company selling my personal information?

Yes, they most likely are. Companies with your personal and non-personal information make them available to other companies everyday.

The Truth is: there are probably plenty of companies out there with your phone number. Entire companies make their living by continually collecting information on people. An extra name is an extra dollar. It sounds crazy, but that's how it is.

The second part the Truth is: there is too much money being made on the spread of people's information for it to ever change on a national scale. You better believe it; billions of dollars are transferred each year in information brokering.

Just consider that information brokering—information on people, their purchasing, and their lifestyle habits—fuels the direct marketing industry, the purchasing trend analysis industry, the background check industry, health insurance underwriting... and the list just goes on and on.

The good news is that you—as the individual—can control to a great extent who uses or doesn't use your information. But on a national level, don't expect things to change drastically anytime soon.

And if you are reading this, you are a member of a small and intelligent part of the population that can see there is potential for abuse in the spread of all this information and you want to be informed of your options.

So kudos to you.

Some background: There are two main categories of information through telephone companies: Consumer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) and directory information.

Included under the umbrella of CPNI are: destination, quantity, and duration of phone calls, product use, and calling patterns. Most phone companies are explicit about not selling CPNI information to third parties (although this data is used for in-house research and may be given to affiliate companies ).

Most phone companies appear to sell directory information (by not explicitly stating that they don't—you must read between the lines to derive that). Directory information includes your name, address, and phone number. Remember, in a public directory, you may choose to have your information listed or unlisted.

Additionally, there may be other information sold about you (termed Personally Identifiable Information which may be a mixture of sanitized CPNI and directory information), but because of several laws, the company must always warn the customer, and allow them to "opt-out" of it.

Know your rights

You have the right to "opt-out" of a company selling your information under the Fair Credit Reporting Act and Gramm, Leach, Bliley Act.
You have the right to have your phone number listed or unlisted in public directories.

Solutions

If you are okay with your phone company selling your phone number and information: Sit back and enjoy life.

If you want to prevent your phone company from selling your phone number: Search for the "opt-out" box!

Be aware every time you sign up with a new company or service that they may sell your information to third parties. This includes non-phone companies for whom you fill out a profile. Always search for the "opt-out" box in everything you sign from every company. Each additional offer or service you add with the company may include another "opt-out" box, which if not checked, would over-rule the first.
Be aware. Here is an example of a large phone company's privacy policy:

"[Company Name] will not disclose personal information other than in accordance with this Policy. In general, that means that you must consent to the disclosure in advance. Depending on the service, we may obtain your consent in a number of ways, including:

* In writing;
* Verbally;
* Online by clicking a button;
* Through the use of a dialing string or button on a wireless device or handset; or
* At the time of initiation of a particular service offering, when your consent is part of the required terms and conditions to use that service.

For example, your consent to disclose personal information can be implied simply by the nature of your request, such as when you ask us to deliver an email or short message to another person. Your return address is disclosed as part of the service and your consent to do so is implied by your use of the service. To determine how personal information may be disclosed as part of a particular service, you should review the terms and conditions of use for that service."

So basically, what this is saying is that the phone company won't give out information unless you give consent: but you can give consent in all of these hard-to-stay-on-top-of ways!

If you wish to address the currently circulating information about yourself, you need to contact the large data aggregators about the use. The good news is, we have already done a lot of the work for you...

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