Submission + - CA Stores Can't Ask Customers for ZIP Codes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: CNN reports that the California Supreme Court has ruled that retailers in California don't have the right to ask customers for their ZIP code while completing credit card transactions, saying that doing so violates a cardholders' right to protect his or her personal information pointing to a 1971 state law that prohibits businesses from asking credit cardholders for "personal identification information" that could be used to track them down. "The legislature intended to provide robust consumer protections by prohibiting retailers from soliciting and recording information about the cardholder that is unnecessary to the credit card transaction," the decision states. "We hold that personal identification information ... includes the cardholder's ZIP code." In her lawsuit, Jessica Pineda claimed that a cashier at Williams-Sonoma had asked for her ZIP code during a purchase — information that was recorded and later used, along with her name, to figure out her home address by tapping a database that the company uses to market products to customers and sell its compiled consumer information to other businesses.
