Privacy for Sale: How Computerization Has Made Everyone's Private Life an Open Secret [Hardcover]

Jeffrey Rothfeder (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1992

An examination of the world of information takes readers on a guided tour of the big three credit agencies, demonstrating why privacy laws are hopelessly outdated and what people can do to minimize their invasions of privacy. 35,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Using his home computer, Rothfelder obtained Dan Quayle's credit report and found out where Dan Rather shops. In a chilling, important expose of snoop technology and the growing invasion of Americans' privacy, the author, former information management editor of Business Week , shows how the average person's birthdate, unlisted phone number, financial status, health records, employment history and other personal data can be accessed with relative ease by tapping credit bureaus, government files and an information underground of hidden data networks. A prospective employer, as Rothfeder shows, can find out what prescription drugs you take and whether you ever applied for worker's compensation. He reports that at dozens of major companies, pinhole camera lenses with microphones secretly track employees' actions and conversations. He also takes us inside the FBI's crime databank, which contains records on some 20 million Americans, including political activists and "people of dubious character." Rothfelder advocates congressional and court action to keep Big Brother from watching. His report performs a valuable public service by dramatizing massive potential abuses. Author tour.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1St Edition edition (August 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067173492X
• ISBN-13: 978-0671734923
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,076,767 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars In Your Face and In Your Best Interests, April 7, 2000

By 

Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Privacy for Sale: How Computerization Has Made Everyone's Private Life an Open Secret (Hardcover)

This book is a perfect complement to Anne Branscomb's, and provides a well-told tale, researched in partnership with a private investigator, of just what can be gotten on you through the electronic web within which we all live our lives. This book is the tactical gutter in your face version, Branscomb's book is the academic dissection.