WEALTH WATCH
STEPHEN CRANSTON: Consumers have a champion in scramble to sell our private data
Gerhard Joubert was never afraid of controversy in his days as head of the Life Offices Association. I wish he had been successful in his rearguard action to prevent the association being taken over by the Association for Savings and Investment SA, a bland, all-things-to-all-people organisation. As head of marketing at PPS, Joubert, along with Mike Jackson, transformed the business from a one-trick pony offering just a sickness benefit to a full service life office. About a year after leaving PPS, Joubert seems to be aiming for one of the ombudsman jobs — he has written extensively on the shortcomings of direct marketing. Most of us are irritated by direct marketing SMSs, MMSs, e-mails and phone calls, but that is the least of the issues. Joubert says it has also placed our private information at serious risk. "Data collectors" collect our private data from a range of legal and illegal sources and then sell it to direct marketing firms. These databases are often sold again and again...
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