Top executives of Roadway D&B, a direct marketing subsidiary of US business information firm Dun & Bradstreet are currently under arrest for allegedly selling illegally obtained private information following an exposé on China’s CCTV this week.
According to published reports, Roadway D&B’s Shanghai general manager, finance director and one other executive are currently in police custody following a television report on China’s consumer protection day (March 15th) which revealed that the company, along with selling direct marketing services, was also selling the private consumption data of more than 150 million high income Chinese citizens at RMB 1.5 per record. Following the report the company’s offices in Shanghai and Beijing were closed on Friday.
As reported in the Shanghai Daily, Shanghai police raided the company’s headquarters on Beijing Road E. Thursday after watching the broadcast. Besides arresting the company officers, police also confiscated four of the company’s servers for evidence. (Always back up your data).
Dun and Bradstreet acquired a majority stake in Chinese direct marketing firm Roadway for US$28 million in 2009. At the time the firm had annual revenues of US$7 million.
The company, which has eight branch offices across the country, was found by undercover CCTV reporters to be selling private information including names, gender, age, address, phone number, job, monthly income and even the kind of car the person owns. According to company representatives caught on camera, Roadway buys the data from banks, mortgage firms, and insurance companies. Other sources for the private data include mobile phone operators such as China Mobile and China Unicom.
In addition to selling direct marketing services such as email, fax, SMS and direct marketing services based on its lists of consumers, the company particularly has come under attack for selling this consumer data directly, which potentially be used by criminals to target high income individuals.
Previously, CCTV’s consumer protection day reports had exposed fake milk powder and this year both McDonald’s and hypermarket retailer Carrefour were caught in the scandal net. McDonalds’ was found to be selling chicken beyond recommended serving intervals, and Carrefour was accused of peddling whole chickens which had passed their expiration date.
Notably, most of the firms targetted in the consumer protection reports on CCTV were foreign invested.
[…] Telecom) who have been raking in the RMB selling your user data to such unscrupulous marketers as Roadway D&B (the local subsidiary of US business information firm Dun & Bradstreet) has been peddling […]