TMI.

• Author: Rundles, Jeff
• Position: RUNDLES wrap up

THERE'S A SCENE IN THE MOVIE "Casablanca" where Nazi Major Strasser tells Rick. "We have a complete dossier on you," to which Rick replies. "Are my eyes really brown?"

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We don't have Nazis in charge anymore, thank the Lord, but the amount of information readily available about nearly everyone these days could, in such hands, be far more dangerous. When a modern-day Rick says to a modern-day Ilsa, "Here's looking at you, kid," it could easily go far beyond a tender moment and cross the line into downright scary.

There is a ease before the U.S. Supreme Court right now concerning the right of pharmacies to sell confidential prescription records to drug makers so they can use that data in their marketing efforts in other words, find out which doctors are not prescribing their higher-priced brand-name drugs and put, the sales hammer on them. At issue are the "free speech rights" of the pharmaceutical companies to market directly to doctors, and while press reports indicate that such data about individual patients is protected by law, one wonders. I can imagine that a whole host of potential buyers--insurance companies, employers, litigants, prospective mates would pay dearly for such information. There is, obviously, no question that the information exists, so how protected are we, really, by the law?

Such data mining, as it is called, is now a multi-billion-dollar industry, and I for one don't feel particularly protected. After all, there are reports almost weekly about security breaches involving Social Security numbers, bank account information, credit/debit card access, etc., etc., gleaned by hackers or left on a sensitive laptop in a coffee shop or taxi cab. Plenty of people I don't know are walking around with reams of electronic data about all of us that would be worth a tempting for tune to someone.

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There are main people "looking at you, kid." Take, far instance, the case of the furniture rental chain, Aaron's Inc., which apparently has hidden software on its rented computers that tracks the keystrokes, screenshots and even Web cam images of customers--unbeknownst to the customers. A recent lawsuit claims the company used information gathered by the software as the basis for a repossession. So let's see: Is Apple or Microsoft or...