Dirt Diggers Digest No. 59
March 7, 2005
Editor: Philip Mattera
1. Amid identity theft controversy, ChoicePoint limits access to data
2. New search engine for free public records
3. Companies with employees in government health programs
4. "Green Canary" report examines corporate political contributions
5. Factiva branches out from full-text to company data
6. Social responsibility analysts create list of "most sustainable" firms
7. Illinois to require vendors to disclose offshoring plans
8. New data on agribusiness concentration
9. Proximity searches on Yahoo and Google
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1. Amid identity theft controversy, ChoicePoint limits access to data
Finding itself under siege because of the revelation that sensitive personal
information on some 145,000 people may have been improperly released,
data vendor ChoicePoint announced last week that it will no longer provide
access to information containing sensitive content such as Social Security
numbers to many of its existing customers, especially small businesses. In a
press release posted at www.choicepoint.com the company said that sensitive
data will be made available only "where there is a specific consumer-driven
transaction or benefit, or where the products support federal, state or local
government and criminal justice purposes."
As part of the transition to this new policy, ChoicePoint is reviewing the
status of its accounts. For now, when users log on they encounter a message
reading in part:
"Dear Customer: Based on recent issues, we are taking a proactive stance
on managing access to sensitive information. ChoicePoint is requesting an
update of your user and account information and reducing your access to some
data -- until we process the update. Your account is still open and searches
are running. Some Social Security numbers, Drivers License numbers and
dates of birth may be truncated (only part of the number will display) on
reports or searches."
ChoicePoint announced that the account reviews may include visits to the
premises of small businesses to verify that they are legitimate operations.
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2. New search engine for free public records
While ChoicePoint is limiting access to its content, a new search engine is
making it easier to locate public records that have been put on the free web by
local governments and other data providers. Pretrieve < www.pretrieve.com >
allows you to plug in a name and automatically get links to its listing in online
phonebooks as well as databases of property records, uniform commercial
code filings, court dockets, professional licenseholders, campaign contributions,
etc. Coverage varies by area. Searches can be done for businesses as well as
individuals. Social security numbers are not included, but there are links to a
database < www.anybirthday.com > that compiles dates of birth from public
sources.
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3. Companies with employees in government health programs
Iowa just became the tenth state to release data on employers with the
largest number of workers and their dependents participating in taxpayer-
funded health programs such as Medicaid and the State Children's Health
Insurance Program. The push for such disclosures is being led by unions
and advocacy groups concerned about the large number of workers at firms
such as Wal-Mart who are denied access to comprehensive and affordable
coverage on the job and must turn to public programs instead, thus putting
governments in the position of indirectly subsidizing the employers.
Dirt Diggers editor Phil Mattera, in his capacity as research director of Good
Jobs First, has assembled all of the available disclosures and posted them at:
http://www.goodjobsfirst.org/corporate_subsidy/hidden_taxpayer_costs.cfm
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4. "Green Canary" report examines corporate political contributions
The Center for Political Accountability has released a report
< www.politicalaccountability.net/gcreport/indexgc.htm > arguing that the
failure of corporations to disclose their political contributions creates an
unacceptable risk to shareholders. Likening such disclosure to the canaries
used by miners as an early warning system to detect a build-up of toxic gases,
the Center sees the availability of contribution data as a way to discourage the
kind of executive misbehavior that arose at firms such as Enron and WorldCom.
(Although federal contributions by corporations to candidates are banned,
companies can still give at the state level and to 527 political committees). The
report includes an analysis of voluntary disclosure practices at large companies.
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5. Factiva branches out from full-text to company data
Factiva < www.factiva.com >, the Dow Jones-Reuters joint venture that
provides full-text access to thousands of news and business publications,
has introduced a new service that puts it in the corporate profile business.
Called Factiva Companies & Executives, it provides basic financial and
operating data on thousands of companies. It is unclear how much of the
content will be original with Factiva. The service will act as a gateway to
data from established providers such as D&B, Standard & Poor's, Thomson,
Hoover's, and Factiva parents Reuters and Dow Jones. In this regard it
resembles services such as Skyminder < www.skyminder.com > and
OneSource < www.onesource.com >.
It is not yet clear whether the new service will be available to individual
Factiva subscribers or only to companies and institutions.
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6. Social responsibility analysts create list of "most sustainable" firms
Corporate Knights Inc., a Canadian publisher of materials on corporate social
responsibility, has joined with investment research firm Innovest Strategic Value
Advisors to assemble what they call The Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations
in the World < www.global100.org >. "The Global 100," the site says, "are
sustainable in the sense that they stand the best chance of being around in 100
years because of their demonstrated performance and strategic ability to manage
the triple bottom line (society, environment, and economy)." The site does not offer
rankings of all the companies, but it does list the top three: Toyota, Aloca and BP.
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7. Illinois to require vendors to disclose offshoring plans
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich recently signed legislation that will require prospective
state vendors to disclose where the work is to be performed. The law, which becomes
effective on June 1, requires the state to produce a report on offshoring in procurement
contracts by September 2007. The text of the law (Public Act 93-1081) can be found at:
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/fulltext.asp?name=093-1081&GA=093
For a survey of state legislative action around the country on offshoring issues,
see the compilation prepared by WashTech at:
http://www.washtech.org/news/legislative/display.php?ID_Content=4653
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8. New data on agribusiness concentration
The National Farmers Union has published updated data on agribusiness
concentration compiled by Mary Hendrickson and William Heffernan of the
University of Missouri. The new data, for example, shows that the top four
beef packers now control 83.5 percent of the market and the top four pork
packers 64 percent. See:
http://www.nfu.org/documents/legislative/Concentration_Tables_2004.pdf
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9. Proximity searches on Yahoo and Google
Rick Rehberg has submitted the following:
Two websites, ResearchBuzz and StaggerNation, have created forms allowing
proximity searches on Yahoo and Google. I have found these especially useful
for researching individuals. The proximity search forms allow you to search the
Internet with the flexibility of a Lexis search (i.e. first name w/2 last name).
The Yahoo form, YNAPS
< http://www.researchbuzz.org/ynaps_yahoo_nonapi_proximity_search.shtml >
allows searches of up to five word proximity. The Google form, GAPS,
< www.staggernation.com/cgi-bin/gaps.cgi > is not as useful. GAPS
allows searches of up to three word proximity and usually only returns the top
10 to 20 results.
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A cumulative list of resources featured in the
Dirt Diggers Digest can be found on the web at:
http://www.corp-research.org/dirt_diggers_index.htm
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Philip Mattera
Director of the Corporate Research Project &
Research Director of Good Jobs First
pmattera@goodjobsfirst.org
www.corp-research.org
www.goodjobsfirst.org