Datamining
Last week we got a questionaire mailed home. It was a form from "Schober GmbH" which asks for everything which can be used for target-specific advertisment. Clearly a datamining company was responsible for that.
It was a form which was done in a very professional way and an uninformed consumer would surely have filled out parts of it to have a chance to win the advertised prize. It looked almost like a form from the tax authorities. To a part I was really impressed of this good work. And they covered their intentions in almost understandable explainations. They even managed to use the phrase "...[we] will use your data solely for transmission to third parties for advertism and statistical purposes..." inside their fine print, which amazingly had the same size and font as the rest of the text, without sounding suspicious.
Only that it was followed by 6 pages of thorogh personal-information-probing... (They even ask for the age of your pets which I jokingly mentioned BEFORE I found that paragraph really be contained in the questionaire).
I did not throw away this form as I would advise anyone but sent a note to ARGE Daten Privacy Service and the consumerism Konsumentenschutz.at.
Both recipients of my note replied today:
- ARGE DATEN is really concerned about this company and they mentioned that they have already a meeting with the head of this firm on a conference about data security. I offered sending them the questionare for reference which they thankfully accepted.
- Konsumentenschutz.at, the consumerism agency, just asked for my address and my phone number before processing my concern.
Well, this could give the base for an almost-real-life-joke:
"Hey, I was contacted by an data-mining company. I'd just want to let you know."
"Thanks for your request. Please provide your adress and phone number for organisational purposes.
ARGE DATEN vs. Konsumentenschutz.at: 1:0