Your personal info traded for pennies

Corporate competition to accumulate information about consumers is intensifying even as concerns about government surveillance grow, pushing down the market price for intimate personal details to fractions of a cent.

Over recent years, the surveillance of consumers has developed into a multibillion-dollar industry conducted by largely unregulated companies that obtain information by scouring web searches, social networks, purchase histories and public records, among other sources.

The resulting dossiers include thousands of details about individuals, including personal ailments, credit scores and even due dates for pregnant women. Companies feed the details into algorithms to determine how to predict and influence consumer behaviour.

Basic age, gender and location information sells for as little as $0.0005 per person, or $0.50 per thousand people, according to price details seen by the Financial Times. Information about people believed to be “influential” within their social networks sells for $0.00075, or $0.75 per thousand people. Slightly more valuable are income details and shopping histories, which both sell for $0.001.

According to industry sources, most people’s profile information sells for less than a dollar in total. “You’re not worth much,” said Dave Morgan, founder of one of the first companies to use web surfing data to target online ads. Read more >>

Wal-Mart, Amex to Offer Alternative to Debit, Credit Cards

The two companies said Monday that Bluebird, which began during a pilot program late last year, will have no minimum balance and no monthly, annual, or overdraft fees. They said that the only fees that will be associated with the card will be transparent and within the user's control, such as out of network ATM withdrawals by consumers that don't have direct deposit.

Wal-Mart Stores and American Express view the card as an alternative to debit and checking accounts, which will help consumers better manage and control their finances. The companies say Bluebird was built on feedback from consumers, who said they were bothered by the rising fees related to checking accounts and debit services.

"Our customers tell us that they're tired of navigating a complex maze of do's and don'ts to avoid the ever growing list of fees found on checking products," Daniel Eckert, vice president of financial services for Walmart U.S., said in a statement. Read more >>

$31.5 billion in overdraft fees by banks in the past year

The financial crisis was supposed to spur a new era of frugality and fiscal responsibility. It doesn't exactly appear to be working out that way. Americans are once again increasingly overspending what they have in their checking accounts. In all, consumers were hit with $31.5 billion in so-called overdraft fees by banks in the past year, according to a new study from bank research firm Moebs Services. That compares to $30.8 billion in the same period a year before.

That was below the peek of $36.8 billion in the same period in 2008. But this year is still the first time overdraft fees have risen since the financial crisis. From mid-2008 to mid-2011, the number of times consumers were hit by overdraft fees had fallen by roughly a third. Now in the past nine months, the levying of overdraft penalties appears to be on the rise again, up 10% in the past nine months.

The question is whether this a a result of shady bank practices or poor money management. On the margin, it appears that overdraft fees have gotten a little more fair. Banks have shelled out hundreds of millions to settle claims that they re-ordered consumer purchases in order to trigger overdraft penalties as often as possible. And the Card Act made it illegal for banks to automatically enroll customers in overdraft protection, limiting the number of people who get hit with fees they didn't even know about. Read more >>

Consumer Confidence Crashes to 9 Month Low

With inflation expectations soaring and jobs plentiful relative to hard-to-get falling slightly, Consumer Confidence plunged its most in 10 months to a level not seen since November of last year. It seems that despite all the hopes and prayers priced into US equity market valuations, the US Consumer remains unimpressed, unhappy, and unemployed. Of course, the 'good is bad, bad is better' market has interpreted this as a clear QE-on flag (for this millisecond anyway). Read more >>

Consumer Sentiment in U.S. Falls to Lowest Since December

Consumer sentiment (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Confidence among U.S. consumers declined in June to the lowest level this year as Americans grew more pessimistic about prospects for the economy. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan final index of sentiment fell to 73.2 this month from 79.3 in May. The gauge was projected to hold at the preliminary reading of 74.1, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

The Michigan survey’s index of current conditions asks Americans whether they’re better off than they were a year ago and if they think it’s a good time to buy big-ticket items like cars. In June that measure dropped to 81.5 from 87.2.

The index of consumer expectations for six months from now, which more closely projects the direction of consumer spending, decreased to 67.8 from 74.3, which was the highest since July 2007. Read more >>

US Consumer Confidence Declines to Five-Month Low

Confidence among U.S. consumers dropped in June for a fourth consecutive month as mounting concern over jobs and incomes dimmed the outlook for spending. The Conference Board’s sentiment index fell to 62, a five- month low, from a revised 64.4 in May, figures from the New York-based private research group showed today. Another report showed home prices were stabilizing.

The slide in confidence raises the risk that the slowdown in hiring revealed by last month’s jobs report will cause households to retrench, restraining the spending that accounts for about 70 percent of the economy. The weak labor market is overshadowing the benefit of the lowest gasoline prices in five months, one reason why companies like Ford are keeping an eye on attitudes.

“The employment situation continues to weigh on consumer minds,” said Yelena Shulyatyeva, a U.S. economist at BNP Paribas in New York, who correctly forecast the confidence index. “Usually consumers react to falling gasoline prices by increasing their spending, but this time around it looks like they’re a little bit cautious.” Read more >>

Consumer Confidence Plunges Most in 8 Months

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Americans confidence in the economy suffered the biggest drop in eight months as worries about the weak jobs, housing and stock markets rattled them again. The decline comes after a few months of optimism amid some positive economic news.

The Conference Board, a private research group, said on Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index now stands at 64.9, down from a revised 68.7 in April. With gas prices falling, Americans were expected to push the measure to 70, according to analysts polled by FactSet.

Rasmussen - Consumer Confidence Hits Two-Year Low

Image via WikipediaThe Rasmussen Consumer Index, which measures the economic confidence of consumers on a daily basis, fell three points on Thursday to 67.8. That’s the lowest level in nearly two years, since July 24, 2009. Consumer confidence is down four points from a week ago, down eleven points from a month ago and down ten points from three months ago.

Confidence in the stability of the U.S. banking system is also down.

Following last Friday’s disappointing jobs report, confidence fell to a 2011 low and then regained a bit of lost ground. It often takes a full week before the impact of a jobs report is reflected in consumer confidence data.

Just 30% say their own finances are in good or excellent shape. That’s down from 43% just before Lehman Brothers collapsed in the fall of 2008 and from 35% when Barack Obama took office. At the beginning of 2011, 34% rated their own finances good or excellent.

Twenty-eight percent (28%) rate their finances as poor, up from 23% at the beginning of the year.

Just 21% believe their own finances are getting better while 52% say they are getting worse. Those figures are also more pessimistic compared to the beginning of the year. The first update of 2011 showed that 24% thought their finances were getting better and 43% thought they were getting worse. More...