Among the recent junk in our mailbox, Natasha received a cruise offer. Straight to the recycling bin, normally. Except! This one was addressed to her maiden name, correctly spelled in all its 13-character glory. And yet, it had our current address.
How would a marketing company be able to tie a long-unused maiden name with a relatively new place of residence of its owner? The only plausible explanation is via a credit-card application. Those often have a maiden name line item on them, and Natasha did obtain a new airline-affiliated card a year or so ago.
I hold moderate views when it comes to privacy concerns and I rarely extend any effort to opt out of information sharing policies that various corporations that we are doing business with have. But it is somewhat disconcerting when information you don’t expect to be shared is not only shared but is then blatantly misused. I suspect I might become a bit more militant about it from now on.