At a time when the encrypted internet communications of consumers is making news due to national security issues, consumers should be made aware that their internet viewing history and social media network information is being compiled and sold to other entities without their consent.
To make matters worse, consumer online viewing behavior is being considered as a factor in determining that person’s credit score. This poses significant problems for a variety of reasons spelled out in the attached two documents on bills I have introduced with Senator Ranzenhofer. Full text of legislation is provided below.
1. Assembly Bill 9145
2. Assembly Bill 9150
Most recently Google paid $1 billion to Apple iPhones to keep their search engine on that cell phone. They did so in order to capture, store and sell user’s internet activity without consumers knowing this or understanding the ramifications.
If you would like more information on the attached two bills banning some of these practices, please contact my Legislative Director Guillermo Martinez at 455-5514.
Google paid $1 billion to keep search engine on Apple iPhones
Google paid Apple $1 billion in 2014 to remain the default search engine on iPhones, according to court transcripts that have since been pulled from the public record.
Bloomberg Business reviewed and reported the news before the documents were taken down. Google is pressing a court to redact sensitive portions of court transcripts in a long-running, unrelated copyright litigation with the company Oracle.
Google has a deal with Apple to pay it a portion of the search revenue that Google makes from having its engine on the iPhone, according Oracle lawyer Annette Hurst, who made the revelation during a Jan. 14 transcript.
BILLS BACKGROUND BELOW
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY
MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION
submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec. 1 (f)
Bill Number: A9145
Sponsor: Member of Assembly Marcos A. Crespo
Member of Senate Michael Ranzenhofer
TITLE:
An act to amend the general business law and the banking law, in relation to prohibiting a consumer reporting agency or lender from using an individual's internet viewing history to determine such individual's credit worthiness
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF THE BILL:
To prohibit a consumer reporting agency or lender from using an individual's internet viewing history to determine such individual's credit worthiness
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:
Section 1. Section 380-j of the general business law is amended by adding a new subdivision (h) to read as follows:
(h)No consumer reporting agency shall collect, evaluate, report, or maintain in the file on a consumer the consumer's use of internet or web browsing history as a factor to determine the consumer's credit score, standing or credit capacity.
Section 2. Section 352 of the banking law is amended by adding a new sixth undesignated paragraph to read as follows:
No licensee shall collect, evaluate, report or maintain in the file on a borrower, the borrower's use of internet or internet viewing history as a factor to determine the borrower's credit worthiness, credit standing or credit capacity.
Section 3 contains the effective date.
JUSTIFICATION:
Consumers in the United States continue to be under attack by the fuzzy math used to calculate credit scores. The US General Accounting Office has estimated that some 75% of credit scores are wrong based on incorrect information collected by credit bureaus and attached to individual credit scores.
As if this was not detrimental enough to the average consumer, credit scores are used by employers to screen potential employees, by landlords and even by graduate schools for students applying to business majors. The errors on these reports and the fuzzy math used to create the credit score are impacting every aspect of our lives.
To make matters worse, the FICO score, a measure of consumer credit risk, which has become a fixture of consumer lending in the United States, is moving to add consumer’s social network as another variable in the more than 100 variable equation used to compute a consumer’s credit score.
FICO is looking to lumping all of the individual consumers’ Internet viewing history into the consumer credit score. A value will be added to the consumer’s choice of websites viewed and that subjective value will be used as a variable to derive a new credit score for individual consumers. This is an obvious invasion of privacy and another fuzzy math approach which will hurt consumers.
It is obvious that individuals in low income communities, immigrants with limited English proficiency, teens and young adults will have an online viewing history that is substantially different than those who are native born, with higher incomes and older.
So why should consumers be further stigmatized and penalized via worsening credit scores based on whether or not they read the New York Times versus the NY Post or because they only play online games and never visit the website of the Economist? FICO’s attempt to do this should be banned and this legislation does exactly that.
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY: No prior legislative history.
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS FOR STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT: None
EFFECTIVE DATE: Immediately.
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY
MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION
submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec. 1 (f)
Bill Number: A9150
Sponsor: Member of Assembly Marcos A. Crespo
Member of Senate Michael Ranzenhofer
TITLE:
An act to amend the general business law and the banking law, in relation to prohibiting a consumer reporting agency or lender from using certain information to determine an individual's credit worthiness
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF THE BILL:
Prohibits a consumer reporting agency or lender from using the membership of the consumer’s social network information to determine an individual's credit worthiness
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:
Section 1. Section 380-a of the general business law is amended by adding a new subdivision (u) to read as follows:
(u) Members of a consumer's social network: a group of individuals authorized by a consumer to be part of his or her social media network.
Section 2. Section 380-j of the general business law is amended by adding a new subdivision (h) to read as follows:
(h)No consumer reporting agency shall collect, evaluate, report, or maintain in the file on a consumer the consumer's use of internet or web browsing history as a factor to determine the consumer's credit score, standing or credit capacity.
Section 3. Section 2 of the banking law is amended by adding a new subdivision 30 to read as follows:
Members of a borrower's social network: a group of individuals authorized by a borrower to be part of his or her social media network.
Section 4. Section 352 of the banking law is amended by adding a new sixth undesignated paragraph to read as follows:
No licensee shall collect, evaluate, report or maintain in the file on a borrower, the borrower's use of internet or internet viewing history as a factor to determine the borrower's credit worthiness, credit standing or credit capacity.
Section 5 contains the effective date.
JUSTIFICATION: Consumers in the United States continue to be under attack by the fuzzy math used to calculate credit scores. The US General Accounting Office has estimated that some 75% of credit scores are wrong based on incorrect information collected by credit bureaus and attached to individual credit scores.
As if this was not detrimental enough to the average consumer, credit scores are used by employers to screen potential employees, by landlords and even by graduate schools for students applying to business majors. The errors on these reports and the fuzzy math used to create the credit score are impacting every aspect of our lives.
To make matters worse, the FICO score, a measure of consumer credit risk, which has become a fixture of consumer lending in the United States, is moving to add consumer’s social network as another variable in the more than 100 variable equation used to compute a consumer’s credit score.
FICO is looking to lumping all of the individual consumers’ social network members credit scores and taking that average into account as a variable to derive a new credit score for individual consumers. This is an obvious invasion of privacy and another fuzzy math approach to hurt consumers.
It is obvious that individuals in low income communities will have a social network of similar individuals based on geography only. So why should low income consumers be further stigmatized and penalized via worsening credit scores. FICO’s attempt to do this should be banned and this legislation does exactly that.
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY: No prior legislative history.
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS FOR STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT: None
EFFECTIVE DATE: Immediately.
Editors Note:
While these bills may have been passed in the State Assembly this legislation must be passed also by the State Senate, and signed by Governor Cuomo in order to become law. To many times there have been bills passed by only the State Assembly or State Senate to have the other State house not pass them.
