
I opened a few of my daily newspapers this morning (yes, the print kind!), and pondered some seemingly conflicting messages. In the Wall Street Journal, I saw the headline “Economic Reports Fan Fears.” In the New York Times, the top business story read “In a Shift, Debt Levels are Falling,” noting that American consumers are reducing their debt.

Last month, the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI)—a coalition of more than 80 leading online marketing companies—released its 2011 annual report reviewing efforts in online advertising self-regulation. In the annual report, which is required by the NAI’s self-regulatory Code of Conduct for Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA), the NAI reviewed the practices of member companies with regards to the collection, use and disclosure of data for OBA purposes.

The Death Master File (DMF) is a database operated by the Social Security Administration (SSA) that contains over 87 million records with information on persons who had Social Security numbers and whose deaths were reported to the SSA from 1962 to the present. The DMF is considered a public document under the Freedom of Information Act, and monthly and weekly updates of the file are made available through the Department of Commerce.



