In a move that could lay bare the inner workings of the consumer data industry, eight members of Congress have opened a sweeping investigation into data brokers — companies that collect, collate, analyze, and sell billions of details annually about consumers’ offline, online, and mobile activities for marketing and other purposes.
Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Representative Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas, cochairmen of the Bipartisan Congressional Privacy Caucus, along with six other lawmakers, sent letters of inquiry on Tuesday afternoon to nine leading industry players. In the letter, the legislators requested extensive information about how the companies amass, refine, sell, and share consumer data. Data brokers often collect details about people’s financial, retail, and recreational activities to help clients like airlines, automakers, banks, credit card issuers, and retailers retain their best customers and woo new ones.
The letter’s recipients included marketing services firms like Acxiom and Epsilon; consumer reporting agencies like Experian and Equifax; Fair Isaac, now known as FICO, the credit scoring services company; and Intelius, a company that offers reverse phone look-up and background checks.
The congressional inquiry heightens the scrutiny of a largely unregulated industry whose companies sell their services to third parties.
In 2010, the Federal Trade Commission initiated an investigation into the practices of more than a dozen data compilers; one, Spokeo, recently agreed to settle charges with the government that it had violated federal law by selling consumers’ personal data for employment screening. Now Markey says he wants the congressional investigation to further expose data broker practices, saying some had the potential to affect people’s access to education, health care, employment, or economic opportunities.
But Markey’s ultimate goal is to determine whether legislators should enact a law regulating the industry.
The privacy caucus’s letter was prompted by an article in The New York Times about Acxiom, based in Little Rock, Ark. Markey’s office gave The Times a copy of the letter.
Industry representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.