Identity Theft Widens

Good grief. The definition of "Identity Theft" keeps growing.

This time Network Solutions does injustice by selling its domain privacy service on the back of the household identity theft scare.

If you search Google for "identity theft protection" you'll see Network Solution's ad "Request Domain Names Now & Get The Name You Want."

You see, Network Solutions now charges $9 a year to keep Internet domain (i.e. protect-my-info.com) contact information private.

The first problem with this is there's no "identity theft" when someone sees your contact info for your domain registration. It's public information. This is like the telephone company telling you that you've been hit with identity theft because someone found you in the phone directory, and you should pay $9 to delist for privacy.

The second problem is companies shouldn't be allowed to keep personal information private. Although the info Network Solution's dealing with isn't that personal, institutions in general should keep certain personal details belonging to other people private.

If an institutions collects your personal info like SSN or health records for instance, the institution should do whatever can to protect that info - not sell it or carelessly lose it.

There was a time when personal info was sold like sports trading cards. A number of states sold voter registration info at one time - with SSN's for example. That's stopped, but we still have a way to go before the mess is cleaned up.