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You probably know that Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian are American consumer reporting agencies that track your credit history. But do you know about Milliman IntelliScript, First Advantage, and Infocubic? What about Innovis, L2C, and DataX?

I can keep going, or you can take a look at the list compiled by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau of 40 different reporting agencies (pdf) that track your behavior.

Each of the reporting agencies compiles different bits of data, such as whether you bounced a check, made your rent payments on time, collected insurance claims, or have taken prescription drugs. They sell that data to different companies that want to size you up — an insurance company deciding how high to set your premiums, a health insurer looking to understand if you have pre-existing conditions, a potential employer trying to determine if you’re trustworthy, or a bank calculating where to set your credit limit. And they do NOT always agree on the outcome!

The Medicare and CFPB data disclosures are huge wins for the open-data movement, which seeks to democratize a vast treasure trove of accumulated government data. That consumers can now command equal footing with big, established, and often opaque institutions like banks or hospitals, is yet another reason to support open data. New York Law School professor Beth Noveck, the former U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Open Government, agrees that this type of disclosure increases accountability and “starts from the premise that consumers, when given access to information and useful decision tools built by third parties using that information, can self-regulate and stand on a more level playing field with companies who otherwise seek to obfuscate.” These “smart” data disclosures, adds Cass Sunstein, the former U.S. administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), also offer “a new tool that helps provide consumers with greater access to the information they need to make informed choices.” Read the examples of the effects that data disclosure to consumers has had on the medical and banking industries.