Acxiom
Acxiom was incorporated in 1969 and went public in 1983. It has "5,000+ associates worldwide" and its "FY2002 Revenue: $866.1 million."[1]
Acxiom states that it "integrates data, services and technology to create innovative, real-time solutions that improve" customer relationships and grow the bottom line.
According to arkansasbusinesss.com:
- "Acxiom Corp. of Little Rock is an information management services company, creating software and services to help clients store and use customer information. Clients include financial institutions, direct mail services and companies such as IBM and Trans Union Corp.
Acxiom was founded by Charles Ward in 1969 in Conway as Demographics. By 1978 it had built the industry's first marketing database; 10 years later it became Acxiom.
Key products include AbiliTec, which can combine all records about an individual or business from several databases, and Personicx, a marketing tool that tracks the demographic makeup of households."
Contents
Personnel and Principals
- Charles Morgan – CEO [2]
Board of Directors
- Wesley Kanne Clark – (General, US-ret.)
- Dr. Ann Hayes Die
- William T. Dillard II
- Harry C. Gambill
- William J. Henderson
- Rodger S. Kline
- Thomas F. McLarty III
- Charles D. Morgan
- Stephen M. Patterson
- James T. Womble
Current Strategic Partners
Also
According to the October 2003 article "Axciom, [sic] the Constitution and the General. Wesley Kanne Clark and the 'No Fly' List" by Sean Donahue,
"Clark's most controversial role has been as a member of the Board of Directors of Axciom, a Little Rock-based database company that owns some of the most extensive consumer databases in the world. According to the Wall Street Journal, Clark 'joined the board of the Nasdaq-traded company in December 2001, as the company started to market its customer-database software to federal agencies eager to hunt for terrorists by scanning and coordinating the vast cyberspace trove of citizen information.' Fortune magazine reported that Clark 'is spearheading the company's pursuit of contracts with the federal government. For example, the company can retool software that detects insurance fraud and make it screen airline passengers instead. Acxiom is now in talks with several government agencies and has won at least one contract so far.'
"Last year Axciom allegedly violated its consumer privacy agreements by turning over its databases to a company doing a trial run of software designed to compile information to help the Transportation Security Administration develop lists of people to ban from commercial flights. According to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Axciom sold information on two million airline passengers to Torch, Inc., a military contractor working on designing an updated version of the 'Computer Assisted Passenger PreScreening System II' known as (CAPPS-II.)"
"According to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 'Airline security is an area Acxiom had hoped to work in since as early as February 2002, according to lobbying reports filed with the U.S. House of Representatives. Wesley Clark, an Acxiom board member and now a presidential front-runner for the Democratic Party, had lobbied for the company, according to those reports, in the areas of 'information transfers, airline security and homeland security issues.'
"The Electronic Privacy Information Center has filed a complaint before the Federal Trade Commission regarding Axciom's transfer of consumer information to Torch, Inc., in violation of its own stated privacy policies. But so far, Wesley Clark has refused to comment on the case.
"Granted, Clark was most likely not directly involved in the decision to transfer the records. But the General does need to explain how he can reconcile his support for civil liberties with his role in helping a company profit from a government program which the ACLU has criticized for violating peoples' rights to privacy and due process. Leaving aside the potential legal violations involved in Axciom's dealings with Torch, Inc., Clark had to be aware of the basic nature of the CAPPS-II program as a lobbyist working on airline security issues. Voters deserve an explanation of Clark's work at Axciom."
SourceWatch Resources
- CAPPS II abuses
- ChoicePoint
- data mining
- internet surveillance
- McLarty: Link to Homeland (Un)-Security
- Narus
External links
- "Big Brother". Out-sourcing Big Brother. You tell me if I'm just paranoid, warroom.com, no date: "An Arkansas company with ties to Mochtar Riady, the billionaire Indonesian and Chinese intelligence agent, has amassed 135 million consumer telephone numbers --including about 20 million unlisted numbers -- to help identify and profile people who call toll-free lines to shop or make an inquiry. ... The company is called Axciom Corp. of Conway, Ark. Formerly it was called Alltel, and before that Systematics. ... When someone makes a toll-free call to a client of Axciom, a telemarketing agent can learn who the caller is and where he or she lives, even before answering the call. The agent can also find out the kind of home the called lives in, the type of cars the owners drive, whether they exercise or own a cat. ... This is the kind of thing Axciom brags about. What the company is more reticent to share with the public is its means of gathering such data."
- Acxiom claims tightened security after hack attack, USA Today, August 8, 2003: "Acxiom, which suffered a security breach to its massive consumer information database, says it has tightened security and doubts that any sensitive information about consumers was used for fraudulent purposes."
- Annie I. Antón, Qingfeng He, and David L. Baumer, The Complexity Underlying JetBlue's Privacy Policy Violations, September 2003(?): "On September 19, 2003, JetBlue Airways publicly acknowledged it had provided the travel records of five million JetBlue customers to Torch Concepts, a private DoD (Department of Defense) contractor for an antiterrorism study to track high-risk passengers or suspected terrorists. Torch Concepts then purchased additional customer demographic information (including social security numbers, etc.) about these passengers from Axciom, one of the largest data aggregation companies in the U.S. The information from JetBlue and Axciom was then used by Torch Concepts to develop passenger profiles for the purpose of identifying possible terrorist suspects. This transfer of data not only directly violated JetBlue's privacy policy, it may have also violated Federal privacy laws. In part prompted by a legal complaint from EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center), the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) and the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) are currently investigating JetBlue Airways and a private class action suit has been filed in the Utah state courts, which alleges fraudulent misrepresentation and invasions of privacy on behalf of the plaintiffs."
Contact
Website: www.acxiom.com
