Never Heard Of Acxiom? Chances Are It's Heard Of You. How a little-known Little Rock company—the world's largest processor of consumer data—found itself at the center of a very big national security debate.
By Richard Behar
Last summer a sheriff in Cincinnati stumbled onto what may have been the biggest security breach of consumer data ever. Searching the home of Daniel Baas, a 24-year-old computer-systems administrator at a data-marketing firm, detectives found dozens of compact discs containing the personal data of millions of Americans. The information, it turned out, had been hacked by Baas over a period of two years from a giant server in Arkansas belonging to a company called Acxiom.
Never heard of Acxiom? The publicly traded, politically connected Little Rock company is the world's largest processor of consumer data, collecting and massaging more than a billion records a day. Its customers include nine of the country's top ten credit-card issuers, as well as nearly all the major retail banks, insurers, and automakers. It's a business that generates $1 billion in sales annually and, after a few bumpy years, is expected to produce $60 million in profits. Analysts project earnings to grow 15% annually over the next five years.
For most of its life, Acxiom (the "c" is silent) has kept a low profile—its corporate customers like it that way. But lately it has found itself at the center of a white-hot swirl of anti-terrorism, national security, and consumer-privacy issues. Remember the flap about JetBlue giving passenger records to a government contractor? And the one about John Poindexter's terrorism futures exchange? They all touched Acxiom.
MORE:
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,588752,00.htmlOh yeah, ON EDIT, Here's the official site:
http://www.acxiom.com/
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