So a date broker was selling the location-tracking data of people visiting abortion providers. Data about all sorts of things holds value, and in today’s world, your data holds plenty. Like it or not, your data has almost definitely already been bought and sold. Just like mine, just like nearly every other person’s in the good ol’ US of A. Of course, it would be nice if you or I had some say in the matter. Personally, I would not freely consent to my data being bought or sold without providing me a benefit, and that is precisely the reason why I don’t have any say in the matter.

Every once in a while our U.S. Congress does something that renews one’s faith in our elected officials at the top. And this is one of those times. Following the damning expose last month in the New York Times, You for Sale: Mapping, and Sharing, the Consumer Genome, in which Times journalist Natasha Singer moved a rock and shed light on the fact that data broker Acxiom, and others like them, are amassing, collating, correlating and selling far more personal data about you – yes, you – than you can possibly imagine, Congress has with lightening speed (literally a few weeks) demanded that Axciom, and others like them, including Experian, Epsilon, Equifax, Harte-Hanks, Intelius, Fair Isaac, Merkle, and Meredith Corp., respond to a demand for information about just what information they are gathering on pretty much every American, and just where they are getting it from, among other questions. The letter was signed by Congressmen Edward J. Markey, Henry Waxman, G.K. Butterfield, Bobby Rush, Joe Barton, Steve Chabot, Austin Scott and Jan Schakowsky.