“Wealth screening” is how non-profits share prospect lists. If you gave tens of thousands to one non-profit and ten bucks to another, then the latter might hit you up for more money. (It's mostly pointless, because wealthy individuals normally use a private foundation or a donor-advised fund to make donations.) (The Wealth-X link is the guy who does those Forbes lists reselling that research.) Starwood shares lists of frequent travelers with airlines. That's normal, but very different from what happened here.
What you said about financial institutions is true for non-Americans under 31 USC §5318(i)(3)(B). Private-banking accounts belonging to “any immediate family member or close associate of a senior foreign political figure” require “enhanced scrutiny”. The law requires your private banker (or relationship manager) to verify that your family and friends aren't senior politicians. This has nothing to do with Starwood or anything that's not a bank.
What Starwood is doing—downloading customers' social media pages even
after being asked not to—is totally abnormal for an American business. (Even the Department of Homeland Security got sued for doing it.)
Originally Posted by
cruiser9999
take a course as to how the internet operates
(I work with people who could teach that course.) The important thing for Starwood to remember: when you run a search and follow a link to a site, (generally) that site can log your search terms and where you are connecting from. Searching for something can be just as public as posting something.
Originally Posted by
cruiser9999
what about all those companies and individuals that are also googling you but you are not aware of?
Just like Starwood, they'll get caught and their reputations will reflect their actions.
Originally Posted by
m0hamed
some Ws in South East Asia will put your Facebook profile photo in a frame ahead of your arrival.
They do what!? (What do you mean by a frame? A window on the clerk's computer, or displayed to all the guests, or something else?)
Clearly, if Starwood doesn't think it's doing anything creepy, they should openly announce that they are downloading every guest's social networking pages, instead of hiding this information in §5(viii) of the fine print and behind names like “Global Personalization”. And they should explain how to opt out, even if that means moving to Marriott.