You Are for Sale

Shadowy Sites

In the shadow of big credit bureaus and medical consortiums are dozens of smaller online firms that sell all types of personal data. Some of these sites, like www.whowhere.com and www.switchboard.com, are relatively innocuous repositories of names, addresses, and phone numbers. The more disturbing sites deal in more invasive forms of personal information.

Companies like 1-800U.S.Search, American DataLink, A1-Trace USA, Discreet Data Systems, and Dig Dirt trumpet their wares on Web sites. Enter a social security number at 1-800U.S.Search, and within an hour you can get someone's current and past addresses for up to ten years, as well as telephone numbers, date of birth, and aliases. And if you want a background report on "nannies, employees, associates, doctors, neighbors, or friends," the company will provide, among other things, driver's license information, vehicle ownership, and bankruptcies. Go to A1-Trace's site and you can dig deeper. For $179, find out what's in someone's safe deposit box; for $289, access bank records; and for $789, learn how much a person has saved in overseas accounts.

These data resellers are usually run by private investigators, former cops, or ex-corporate security chiefs. Legitimate companies are circumspect about what they provide customers. They don't give out credit reports without authorization, for instance, and they may withhold social security numbers if they question a buyer's motives.

And what they sell isn't illegal. No federal law will safeguard your medical files, bank accounts, phone logs, or phone numbers, so such data can be sold without fear of prosecution. In fact, most federal and state agencies sell motor vehicle records, voter registration files, and other data to information resellers.