Disclosure Time.(Brief Article)

The editor of this newspaper has something to disclose to those of you who work at financial institutions. Some of you may be among his two mortgage lenders. Others might have provided credit life insurance or mortgage insurance to him. And your parent companies may have issued credit cards to him, and may be holding his deposits and checking accounts.

In short, a good number of you have had to send him "privacy disclosure" statements recently. And though like many consumers, this editor receives too much junk mail, too many dinner-time phone solicitations, would like to be on fewer marketing lists and hasn't read a single one of those disclosure letters you have sent out.

He skimmed them. He threw them out. The longer and more detailed they were, the less he skimmed.

He knew if he read all the fine print he could have found out how to "opt out" of having his name shared with other marketers. It seemed like too much trouble.

No doubt, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley amendment that required you to send out all those privacy policy notifications (and will require you to send them again and again, annually) was well intentioned. Consumers receive too many unwanted solicitations, and their complaints were heard loudly and clearly in Congress. Some marketers are too aggressive, and they helped give the cross-selling business - particularly the telemarketing sector - a bad ...