Watch out, you can always be sold over the net!

How many times did we have to disclose our name and e-mail address and sometimes even the phone number or shoe size in order to get some information on the web?

What happens with these data stored in huge archives? Should we choose to believe those running dotcoms, the data are used by companies to send e-mails to users to inform them on the latest news available on their website.

What really happens is that once the form is filled in and submitted to the database of a virtual shop or to a simple site providing information about the latest car models on the market, for instance, the user no longer has any control whatsoever over who might get their e-mail or personal data.

No to mention the credit card number, so much hunted by hackers. The consequences range from spamming to raiding one’s bank account.

Most of the times, dotcoms do not have a clear policy about conveying user or client data, or they simply do not observe it. Why? Because such databases may bring them big money they would not make from online sales or web advertising either.

“Database sales must be looked upon from the standpoint of those whose data are stored in it and the possibility that they could get something out of it. I don’t think selling databases would be much of a problem in Romania.

People in the West agree to share their name and e-mail with others provided that they should get something in return, therefore if they are included in a new database and make something of it, they will agree.

The problem is that the company is supposed to sell its database, and not an employee of the company in question,” Calin Fusu manager of RoGenerator Company, owner of BestJobs.ro, eCasa.ro and eTurism.ro sites, told Ziarul Financiar.

As for the West, the disputes over selling client lists to a different company are more and more frequent.

Given that so many dotcoms have gone bankrupt, selling a database has become a widespread method to recover part of the debts of the companies in financial trouble.

Two weeks ago, the political portal Voter.com announced it had put up for sale a list of more than 170,000 e-mail addresses, along with forms filled with data about the political colours as well as other details about the owners of the e-mail accounts in question.

Voter.com is not the only one to have done that. Last year, Toysmart, a virtual shop, stirred a lot of controversies by announcing its plans to sell archives with information about its clients.

After some time of clashes in court, Walt Disney, main stockholder of the bankrupt company at the time, agreed to buy and destroy Toysmart’s client list.