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Discussion

Part A: We all know it's fairly easy to find information about people online. It might be their phone number and address, criminal background, marital records or other information. 

There are companies that collect information about each of us, referred to as data mining. Collecting this information could be for marketing purposes, but sometimes it's for background checks or other uses. There are some major companies that do this. An example is Insight Decision Solutions that collects information for insurance companies.  Lexis-Nexis collects data for fraud prevention. Acxiom collects information for marketing, but also for fraud prevention and background checks.

Find a company that collects information about individuals for purposes other than marketing.  Look up information about the company.

Who is the company? What type of information do they collect? Who has access to the information? What might they do with the information? Do they sell it to other companies? If the information about you is incorrect, how do you correct it?

Discuss these and other issues about privacy today. Should businesses be allowed to do this? Should there be regulations about this? If so, what type of regulations? Do you care? Why or why not?  

BE SURE TO CITE YOUR SOURCE.

Part B: Instructions

Find an article about a company that published their financial statements, realized there was an error in the statements and had to restate those financial statements.  In other words they had to say the original statements were wrong and then they had to publish new statements that they say are correct. 

Did the news media say much about this?  If so, what?  Did the public react?  If so, how?  Did regulatory agencies get involved?  If so, how?  Overall, what was the reaction to the company publishing statements that were not accurate?

Write one or two paragraphs about what you learned.  Be sure to cite your source. HINT:  search using the terms "what company has restated their financial statements" or something similar