Subject: Privacy - File No. S7-6-00

Date:    03/16/2000 1:56 PM
     
     
Companies should not be allowed to distribute information about their 
customers or clients without specific permission.  Giving clients an 
opportunity to "opt-out" is insufficient protection.  On a practical basis, 
the opt-out requires clients to read a lot of "small print" and then 
compose, write and send written correspondence, by "snail mail",  to 
implement the opt-out provision.  Most people just will not bother with all 
of that, even though they do not wish their information to be distributed. 
The "protection" of this law seems to be more a formality than real for the 
reason described above.  A real protection law would put the burden on the 
company that wants to use personal information, and not on the poor 
unsuspecting public.
     
Jeffrey S. Leeson, South Euclid, Ohio