THE NAKED CONSUMER: How Our Private Lives...

THE NAKED CONSUMER: How Our Private Lives Become Public Commodities by Erik Larson (Penguin: $10.95; 275 pp.). Posing as the CEO of a fictional direct-mail corporation, Larson was able to penetrate the inner workings of the companies that target customers for junk-mail campaigns. His account of his discoveries is funny, infuriating and alarming by turns. Despite the wishes of the people they target, these entities amass frightening amounts of personal data. Instead of protecting the right to privacy, the U.S. government assists and subsidizes their sleazy efforts: The Census Bureau even sells them data at bargain rates. In 1990, the Harris-Equifax poll showed 79% of Americans are “somewhat” or “very concerned” about threats to personal privacy; that same year, 63.7 billion pieces of junk mail were sent--most of it from the companies Larson describes.