Consumer Watchdog – Fighting Corporateering - Privacy

Consumer Watchdog fights to protect your privacy and put and end to identity theft. We believe that banks and corporations should be required to get your permission before trading or selling private information such as your Social Security number and bank account balances. We believe that on-line medical databases must be protected so that our sensitive health information does not fall into the hands of health care corporations and drug companies interested in using the information for their profit.

• Fought to protect consumers from identity theft by requiring tough new protections for credit card databases.
• Researched city Corporateering Quotients grading cities on privacy protections.
• Exposed the practice of auto and home insurers using credit scores as an excuse to raise rates and discriminate against certain communities.
• Demonstrated to policymakers how almost everyone's private information is at risk without stronger laws by purchasing the social security numbers and home addresses of key Bush cabinet officials over the Internet for as little as $26 each.
• Fought federal legislation deigned to undermine state privacy laws by hiring a skywriter to print the first five digits of Citigroup CEO Charles Prince's Social Security number over midtown Manhattan.