ChoicePoint split off from Equifax ca. 1997. It aggregates personal data about consumers, then sells it. It's basically commercialized surveillance. That's right. Get rid of big government by outsourcing it to corporations.
You can read about ChoicePoint and the larger phenomenon of civilian surveillance in various books about government spying, personal data, etc. Similar company: Seisnet, which was owned by LexisNexis. Both Seisnet and ChoicePoint have had embarrassing public data breaches.
In 2008, the FTC issued a complaint against Reed Elsevier for wanting to acquire ChoicePoint:
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/09/choicepoint.shtm
However, you can see that today's homepage indicates you've arrived at LexisNexis ChoicePoint.
Have a look at this from 2007:
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2008/09/choicepoint.shtm
"...the project I am most excited about is our Customer Data Integration project. We are looking to enhance customer service across all of our business units through the creation of a “golden source” datastore and workflow for our customer information. This will allow us to link together all customer data across a customer lifecycle from application to customer support and billing. This will ultimately allow us to anticipate and resolve customer issues before there is any visibility to our customers."
Welcome to the Matrix.
http://epic.org/privacy/profiling/default.html
Your allergies, Letters to the Editor, GPA, credit files, arrest record, and shopping habits, all conveniently located in one place. Seriously. For some time now.
Starting Score: 550