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They found a bunch of manufacturers giving away customer information for lobbying purposes. Customers didn’t enter it for that, they did it for warrantees. In some cases as shown, the warranty cards explicitly stated they wouldn’t give it to anyone else.
I feel like if this was anything else but guns people here would be outraged about the privacy invasion/data sharing aspect.
But instead people appear to be mad about anything else they can find.
Now respond to the real report that gun manufacturers sold your information (I’m assuming you own a gun and registered the warranty) for lobbying purposes. You pissed off at that at all? It does seem like a violation of your privacy.
Maybe we should push our representatives to pass a law prohibiting that sort of shit. We do still live in a democracy for the time being.
"A ProPublica review of dozens of warranty cards from the 1970s through today found that some promised customers their information would be kept strictly confidential. Others said some information could be shared with third parties for marketing and sales. None of the cards informed buyers their details would be used by lobbyists and consultants to win elections."
then no law is needed. That's already going to be a civil offense, it's going to be one that can be moved to a class action lawsuit, and given the political nature of the target, you can rest assured that it will be a class action lawsuit from someone. It may also be criminal, which I don't know because guessing what is and is not "criminal" is pretty hard nowadays, but this is certainly a civil infraction given the text of that paragraph.
You might not hear about any results until 2026 or 2027, because that stuff is slow. But even if this wasn't already submarine PR on its own terms [1], it would be sufficient to spark a rush by class action law firms to find a representative client and get the suit filed before anyone else does.