If you’re like tens of millions of Americans, you’ve handed over your name, email address and phone number to RadioShack when making a purchase or completing a product return. Now that information, no matter how old, is on the auction block.
That’s right, as part of its bankruptcy auction, RadioShack is taking bids on its customers’ personal data, Bloomberg Business reports.
“A website maintained by Hilco Streambank, which is serving as an intermediary for RadioShack, says that more than 13 million e-mail addresses and 65 million customer names and physical address files are for sale,” Bloomberg said.
Hedge fund Standard General, one of RadioShack’s creditors, won the auction, Bloomberg News noted.
A bankruptcy court still needs to approve the deal. Plus, RadioShack is also faced with two legal challenges to its attempt to sell customer data.
The Texas State Attorney General’s office and AT&T have filed objections to the sale of customers’ personal data, Forbes reports.
The Texas AG office said it breaches RadioShack’s company statement that it prides itself on “not selling our private mailing list.”
AT&T maintains that because RadioShack was merely acting as a selling agent for them, their customer information on the mobile phone side isn’t theirs to sell, it’s AT&T’s.
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