Today was a good mail day. Got a refund from a company in which
my family purchases a number of services. A good company, we like
them, happy with their services. Yeah! So, as is typical,
this refund was distrubuted in a check form. Turning over the
check to endorse, I see the following:
"This Notice Only Applies to Vendors and Service Providers:
By endorsing this payment for your services, you agree not to
use or disclose any personal customer information received from
us unless necessary for the services we requested."
Well, isn't this interesting? Back to that entertaining consumer
privacy issue. So, I am just your average consumer - who in
today's world has to release certain information to this particular
company to obtain services. I want the service, so I give the
data, I know who the company is. So, as an average consumer
participant, let me see if I can make sense of the above....
First, I am assuming technically as an individual consumer, in this
context, I am not a Vendor or a Service Provider for this
company. So, doesn't apply to me right? But, being a
naturally curious person - I again throw caution to the wind and read
on and draw the following points of interest:
-Even though I am informed that this notice
apparently does not apply to me; they seem to potentially reference my
"personal information"
-What if the Vendor decides that the personal
customer information is worth more than the yet to be endorced payment
received?
-What if I don't have the same level of trust in the
Vendor trusted by my directly trusted service provider? {...and the
woodchuck could chuck wood...}
-So the personal customer information received by the Vendor should not be disclosed unless it is necessary?
-Define
necessary? {come on Clinton...}
-So this means that the Vendor can disclose personal
information as long as my trusted service provider gets its service?
-As my personal information traverses this 'trust fork' process, disclosure enforcement rests on
this?
See how much
fun this is?
/jason
