FTC wants Radio Shack customers' data protected
The Federal Trade Commission is urging that personal information collected by the now-bankrupt electronics retailer RadioShack be kept private or have restrictions on its use if it's sold along with other company assets.
In a letter to a court-appointed consumer privacy ombudsman released on Monday, the FTC noted that the information was collected after consumers were given detailed promises by RadioShack about how that data would be kept private.
RadioShack's information about tens of millions of consumers -- including names, addresses, email addresses and what they spent money on in the stores -- is potentially valuable. But it also has raised considerable concern among consumer protection officials, who have tried to get the bankruptcy court to drop that from the list of assets that can be sold.
Late last month RadioShack agreed to go to mediation after attorneys general from three states -- Texas, Oregon and Tennessee -- requested that personal information about customers be held out of the asset sale.
The FTC noted that it had previously weighed in when Toysmart tried to sell its customer information, recommending any sale of the data come with restrictions. The FTC asked the ombudsman to limit the sale of RadioShack's customer info only to another company in a similar line of business and to require the buyer to abide by the same terms that RadioShack had in place when consumers provided their information to the retailer.