Financial Advisor's Privacy Policy- How Private is Private?

[cashflo2u2]

https://www.merriman.com/misc/privacy.asp

I am hoping to get a few opinions on this privacy policy. This is from their website. Is this fairly typical? It seems to me that it is a stretch to call it private. Especially, this wording:

"Furthermore, we restrict access to your non-public personal information to those persons who require such information to provide products or services to you.
Some services you receive from Merriman, Inc. are provided through our service providers, which include but are not limited to the custodian banks of mutual funds you invest in. All records containing your non-public personal information are also maintained at the service providers' places of business."

But maybe one would have to provide this stuff to mutual funds anyway, if doing on ones own.

 

[REWahoo]

Cashflo, nice to hear from you. Did you see where you were being paged? http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f29/census-worker-hanged-46453.html#post858773

 

[cashflo2u2]

Thanks REWahoo, I checked in.

 

[REWahoo]

Good. Now to your question above...

I'm far from an expert but it looks like standard boilerplate privacy info to me. As you point out, you would have to provide this information to a MF company if you purchased directly from them anyhow.

 

[brewer12345]

I looked at the firm and they appear to be a small shop. Most small shops outsource their custodial, data service, client contact database stuff, etc. to a third party service provider. I think that this is just CYA boilerplate to cover this sort of thing.

Their staff includes a man with one of the most gawdaful names I have ever seen: Tom Cock Jr.

 

[REWahoo]

Their staff includes a man with one of the most gawdaful names I have ever seen:

He should thank his lucky stars his parents chose to name him junior rather than hang him with a name like Richard.

 

[saluki9]

Their staff includes a man with one of the most gawdaful names I have ever seen: Tom Cock Jr.

Even worse than that, Tom has to work with a guy names Phuc Dang. Thankfully they don't work as a team because I'm sure the Dang Cock team would attract a lot of unwanted attention.

 

[cashflo2u2]

I saw those names. It would be worth going with them to get Phuc Dang, just to be able to say "Phuc DANG, your good".