Online data broker US Search has reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission regarding the privacy of customer information.

"US Search, which advertises itself as the top people search website in the U.S., offered to 'lock' the records of customers who paid a $10 fee, so that other people using the service could not see or buy the records, the FTC said in a news release Wednesday," writes Computerworld's Grant Gross. "But US Search's PrivacyLock service, available since June 2009, did not block consumers' names from showing up as an associate of someone else, did not block consumers' information from appearing in a reverse search of their phone numbers or addresses, and did not work if the consumers changed addresses, the FTC said."

"Under the settlement, US Search must refund the fees paid by nearly 5,000 customers to have their records locked," Gross writes.

Click here to read the Computerworld article.

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