From KCRW in Santa Monica and PRI, Public Radio International, this is To the Point.

The downside of data mining.

Hello again, I'm Arminolny, and this is To the Point from Public Radio International,

a daily look at the issues Americans care about most.

Your personal data is all over the Internet, and it's up for sale, not just to marketers,

but to financial institutions and possible employers.

If you've just applied for a warranty or Googled somebody else's chronic disease,

you could be on a list of bad credit risks or unsuitable employees.

If the information is wrong, there's not much you can do to correct it because it's secret,

and there's almost no regulation.

And don't forget about the NSA.

It might be secretly mining even the data of its own corporate partners.

Today's talking point, do campaign contributions threaten the independence of judges?

First, here's the news.

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Hello again, we're not only back with

To the Point. Whatever you do online, from filling out forms to making innocent requests for

information, it's subject to data mining. That can lead to unflattering profiles or put you on

lists that can be damaging even though the data turns out to be wrong. We hear calls for transparency

and for regulation.

...