Earlier this morning, Tim Cook penned an op-ed in TIME Magazine to call for comprehensive federal privacy reform. Now, Acxiom, one of the largest data brokers, has come out in support of Cook’s call for GDPR-like regulation in the United States.
As reported by Business Insider, Acxiom said in a statement this evening that it supports national privacy legislation in the United States. “Acxiom, like Mr. Cook, also supports a national privacy law for the US, such as GDPR provides for the European Union,” the data broker said in a statement.
Further, Acxiom went on to say that the “nefarious players” must be rooted out of the data industry:
Acxiom is a $3 billion data brokerage that essentially acts as a middleman – transferring data between different companies and parties. It’s one of the world’s biggest data brokers, alongside other companies such as Experian and Oracle.
What makes Acxiom’s endorsement of Cook’s ideas so notable is that the Apple CEO specifically called out data brokers in his opinion piece:
In the TIME Magazine piece, Cook calls on the FTC to create a “data-broker clearinghouse.” This would require all data brokers – like Acxiom – to register and enable customers to track the transactions that have “bundled and sold their data from place to place.” Further, this would allow users to delete their data “once and for all.”
Read Acxiom’s full statement at Business Insider.
