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Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

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Re: Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

#101

Post by jackhack »

joncrane wrote: post #73
TallGuyShort wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a large trash can right next to my neighborhood's mailboxes that everyone dumps the junk into with barely a glance - really illustrates how wasteful it is to be delivering it in the first place. It's a disgustingly huge trash can that has to be emptied daily.

Ha. I petitioned to our HOA to put a trash can next to every mailbox and they refused.

Write "not deliverable" and drop it back into the "outbound mail" slot? Or get a stamp with the same for even-less-work version.

Re: Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

#102

Post by tssva »

dahdum wrote: post #99
Robotbeat wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The federal government in the US has pretty strict regulations with regards to PII (personally identifiable information). But apparently Florida doesn’t.

The USPS sells address updates in bulk for marketing purposes, and they are federally regulated.

Direct Marketers must have your name and prior address in order to receive your updated address. So they are providing updated PII to those who already had your prior PII. You can opt out.

The USPS makes only a few million from selling this data but saves over a billion dollars by avoiding the cost of forwarding mail sent to prior addresses.

The USPS is allowed to do this under an exception for it in the Privacy Act.

Re: Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

#103

Post by totalrobe »

burmer wrote: post #65
dqv wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. I can't believe the mail doesn't violate some kind of FTC regulation about impersonating your mortgage lender. So many of the mailpieces were designed in such a way that I almost believed it was coming from the lender and not some third party company that wants me to buy a warranty.

Yup, we were warned about this beforehand, and saw it too.

I was not warned, and was a little put off when we started receiving endless "notices" that listed the exact loan balance at closing.

Re: Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

#104

Post by degenerate »

sonthonax wrote: post #47
maxheadroom wrote: post #2

> The I-Team wanted to know how much of that money came from marketing firms, but the agency in charge of driver information estimated it would take 154 hours of research and cost nearly $3,000 for the state to give taxpayers an answer. I'm no rocket scientist but $3,000 (USD) is less than $77M (USD), yeah? > That’s because Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles said companies buying data on Floridia…

Claiming it's not used for marketing is blatant newspeak. I'll try and explain what they mean. This sort of data is frequently used by trading firms to try and get a more accurate picture of how auto-companies are doing, or the local economies. Insurance firms also use this data. Experian and Equifax almost definitely use it too. The data is terrifyingly granular, most DMVs do this. The company which I currently work…

Thanks, that makes more sense of what kind of data this is for. Still annoying that the DMV doesn't notify you about it up front, or have an opt-out from the start.

Re: Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

#105

Post by dahdum »

tssva wrote: post #102
dahdum wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USPS sells address updates in bulk for marketing purposes, and they are federally regulated.

Direct Marketers must have your name and prior address in order to receive your updated address. So they are providing updated PII to those who already had your prior PII. You can opt out. The USPS makes only a few million from selling this data but saves over a billion dollars by avoiding the cost of forwarding mail sent to prior addresses. The USPS is allowed to do this under an exception for it in the Privacy Act.

Thank you for clarifying. Is it possible the data brokers themselves are buying the update and then selling it onward then? During my last move I received a boat load of direct marketing mail after my COA but before I updated any other accounts / license (took a vacation before arriving at the new home). Many companies I'd never heard of, included some health insurance scams.

Re: Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

#106

Post by qrbLPHiKpiux »

dontbenebby wrote: post #81

This is pretty bad. The usual argument of " if you don't like it don't use Facebook/Google/(insert company here) " doesn't apply here. You have to interact with the government to get a DL, there are no competitors. Therefor government services should treat personal information with the utmost respect and discretion, not sell it off to the highest bidder.

I'm going to write this, and it's going to fall on deaf ears. Not my bros here, but the public, in general.

Elections have consequences and the public does not hold elected officials accountable by the low voter turnout reported. I mean, what - 20% of eligible people vote in local elections, and 50% for presidentials?

Re: Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

#107

Post by cascom »

gregkerzhner wrote: post #100

After I registered my new car in Colorado, I started getting a ton of mail from fake car warranty scams. I called them a few times to stop mailing this crap, but they just kept going anyways. It was an address I only stayed at very temporary, and the DMV was one of the only places that I gave that address, so I am pretty sure they are doing the same thing.

in TX if you get a run of the mill speeding ticket, you are inundated with law firms offering to represent you...not sure where the data is coming from, but its pretty annoying

Re: Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

#108

Post by Duladian »

Off topic, but a method to determine who sold your contact information.

Whenever I sign up for a service I'll add letters to the end of my first name. I've done this for over 15 years and all of my adult life.

Because of this, I've been able to determine the government is where most of my personal information is sold and used for market material against me.

Disney is also another large culprit of spam. Although, they've kept my information internal to the companies owned or affiliated by them.

Re: Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

#109

Post by volkl48 »

spartas wrote: post #70
asark wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why IRL mail spam is still allowed. It's a fucking nuisance. 95% of the mail I get is junk mail. Another 4% is recurring bill notices or something similarly low-value (yeah, I could probably make some of those go away by logging into whatever-it-is and checking a box somewhere, but it's overwhelmed by the junk mail anyway). Maybe 1% is something I actually care about. And I get a lot of mail. I'd pay a fe…

You do pay a fee for mail service. While USPS is not directly funded by taxes, it is funded by the Federal Government. Our taxes are responsible for financing the government's initiatives. The problem is that the cost to bulk mail (at least 200 pieces) is merely $0.19 per piece. If you want to DOS an entire zip code regardless, EDDM is actually cheaper (per piece) at $0.187. USPS is getting that money. You would need…

The USPS receives no federal funding.

It does get various breaks a private company wouldn't that you can argue amount to subsidies, such as not having to pay taxes. And it does have what amounts to a government-enforced monopoly on certain types of shipping.

But there is no funding allocated from the federal government to the USPS.

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