Editing Consumer privacy (section)

===1970s===
Through the 1970s, many other organizations in [[developed nation]]s began to acquire sensitive data, but there were few or no regulations in place to prevent them from sharing or abusing the data.  Customer trust and goodwill were generally thought to be sufficient in first-world countries, notably the [[United States]], to ensure the protection of truly sensitive data;  ''[[caveat emptor]]'' was applied in these situations. But in the 1980s, smaller organizations also began to get access to computer hardware and software, and these simply did not have the procedures or personnel or expertise, nor less the time, to take rigorous measures to protect their customers.  Meanwhile, via [[target marketing]] and [[rewards programs]], companies were acquiring ever more data.{{citation needed|date=July 2019}}<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Foxman, Ellen R., and Paula Kilcoyne|date=March 1, 1993|title=Information Technology, Marketing Practice, and Consumer Privacy: Ethical Issues|journal=Journal of Public Policy & Marketing|volume=12|pages=106–119|doi=10.1177/074391569501200111|s2cid=158361537}}</ref>

Gradually, customer privacy measures were seen as deficient to deal with the many hazards of corporate data sharing, corporate mergers, [[employee turnover]], and theft of data storage devices (e.g. [[hard drives]]) that could store a large amount of data in a portable location. Explicit regulation of consumer privacy gained further support, especially in the [[European Union]], where each nation had laws that were incompatible (e.g., some restricted the [[data collection]], the data compilation and the [[data dissemination]]); it was possible to violate privacy within the EU simply doing these things from different places in the [[European Common Market]] as it existed before 1992.{{citation needed|date=July 2019}}<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Papacharissi, Zizi, and Jan Fernback|title=Online privacy and consumer protection: An analysis of portal privacy statements|journal=Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media}}</ref>