The kerfuffle over Verizon’s charming 45-day opt-out period is one more in a long, long chain of incidents that explain why privacy advocates’ foreheads have such distinctive brick-wall scarring on them.

But the appetite some marketers have for their customers’ data makes me think the principle of “buyer beware” is woefully optimistic. “Buyer be absolutely paranoid and relentlessly vigilant” is more like it.
