Voters in North Dakota on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a law that allowed banks to sell customer information without written permission, according to news reports.
“It’s surprising that the issue got as far as a ballot initiative,” said Marty Abrams, executive director of the Center for Information Policy Leadership at Hunton & Williams, Atlanta.
He was skeptical the North Dakota vote signaled a trend. But said that the direct marketing industry must do a better job of educating the public about the benefits of sharing information. And to do so in a way that is distinctly separate from marketing materials.
He warned that the decision may influence the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which allows financial services organization to share customer data with third party marketers. The FCRA expires at the end of 2003.
Banks often share the information to determine the credit risk of a given customer, said Jerry Cerasale, senior vice president of government affairs at the Direct Marketing Association.
“It’s unfortunate because banks and credit card companies in North Dakota won’t be able to share information with each other and that might increase the prices and interest rates on loans,” he said. “Of course we
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