Bewildering or not, and whether you want to believe it or not, I wouldn't put it past your bank: all the economic incentives are firmly stacked against you.
As things stand right now, the regulatory environment permits banks to send you a difficult-to-understand, filled-with-legalese notice letting you know they will be sharing a lot of your information with third parties and certain "affiliates" (such as, say, joint ventures with other companies)... unless you call some call center to opt-out.
Perhaps this is more of a problem in the US than in NZ.
My bank has "ASB will not sell your information to third parties." in it's privacy policy near the top. They do talk about sharing information with credit agencies.
At least in my country there are laws about this kind of thing. (Privacy Act 1993, NZ)
It is an argument for straightforward and effective regulation. Otherwise, individuals end up jumping through endless hoops, when they are even offered an "opt out" or similar option.
As things stand right now, the regulatory environment permits banks to send you a difficult-to-understand, filled-with-legalese notice letting you know they will be sharing a lot of your information with third parties and certain "affiliates" (such as, say, joint ventures with other companies)... unless you call some call center to opt-out.
How easy is it to opt-out? Here's what one consumer found out when he tried to opt-out from one well-known bank's default "privacy" policy: http://blog.joemanna.com/chase-sucks-with-new-privacy-policy...
Then one reads about companies like Acxiom in this recent article in the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/technology/acxiom-the-quie...