Company Accused of Selling User Data Shuts Down after $104 Million Settlement

[LASER_oneXM]

The Federal Trade Commission has shut down the operator of a large network of online loan sites that promised to find people the loans with the lowest rates, but actually sold users' data to third-parties, most of which weren't even lenders.
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According to the FTC, since 2012 Blue Global Media operated a network of 38 websites that promised users to match them with the best payday, personal, or auto loans using Blue Global Media's proprietary technology.

Hoping to find loans with the smaller interest rate and friendlier terms, users entered a slew of personal details on Blue Global Media's websites, such as names, email addresses, home addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, financial and banking information, driver's license, state ID numbers, income data, military status, home ownership info, and many other more.

Blue Global Media sold 98% of the user data to non-lenders
The FTC says that Blue Global Media allegedly collected in-depth data from over 15 million loan applications, but only 2% of these were sold to actual loan lenders, while the rest was sold to non-lenders, with complete disregard for user privacy or without obtaining the loan seeker's permission.

In addition, the FTC says that Blue Global Media allegedly didn't match loan applications based on loan rates or terms, and in most cases, it sold the loan application to the first lender that offered to fill it, to the detriment of the users who used their site.

 

[orthonovum]

Never heard of this company but I bet they are just a fraction of the unscrupulous companies out there doing this I am glad they got shut down, I hope they don't spring back up under another name.