Firm Drops Controversial Tactic

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John (Jay) Rockefeller (D-WV) Friday praised the marketing firm Affinion Group for dropping a controversial tactic known as online datapass marketing. Rockefeller's committee has been investigating Affinion and two other firms, Vertrue and Webloyalty, that partner with trusted online retail sites to get consumers to sign up for discount club memberships as part of a misleading step connected to the online checkout process with the retail sites. As part of the process, consumer credit and debit card information is passed on to the marketing firms usually without consumers' knowledge.