Current Issues in Consumer Privacy Policies‪.‬

In November 2000, the Financial Services Modernization Act, also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, became law. It eased state and federal restrictions on affiliations among financial institutions. Almost immediately, privacy issues arose, since affiliated institutions naturally would want to share customer information. The law allows sharing of nonpublic information for a number of specific purposes and situations. Consumers must be notified of an institution's privacy policy and be given a chance to "opt-out" of information sharing with nonaffiliated third parties. How well does this work? A three-year longitudinal study of over 100 institutions looking at five elements of privacy statements found widespread compliance with existing privacy laws and extensive fine-tuning of privacy statements over the period. Nevertheless, it also confirmed that much nonpublic information is legally shared among joint-marketers and affiliated institutions, which may be a cause for concern and future legislation. Introduction