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Summary: Amazon.com new privacy policy is criticized by privacy organizations because the new policy does not allow opt-out.

By D. IAN HOPPER Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) Consumer groups say a change in Amazon.com's privacy policy could leave customers of the Internet retailing giant no recourse if they don't want personal information such as credit card numbers and home addresses passed on to some other company.

Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc., which sells a wide range of products, including books, toys and hardware, posted a revised privacy policy on its Web site Thursday telling customers the information they give is considered a company asset that can be sold. A company spokeswoman, Patty Smith, said the new policy is actually more restrictive in some cases, and better explains what Amazon can and cannot do with customer data.

``As we continue to develop our business, we might sell or buy stores or assets,'' the new policy reads. ``In such transactions, customer information generally is one of the transferred business assets.''

The policy also says that ``in the unlikely event that Amazon.com Inc. or substantially all of its assets are acquired, customer information will of course be one of the transferred assets.''

Privacy organizations criticized the new policy, which was highlighted as ``New'' on Amazon's Web site and is being e-mailed to the company's over 20 million customers.

TRUSTe, which runs a privacy seal-of-approval program, noted that Amazon is not a member of its or any other third-party privacy program and that the company wouldn't have been able to change the policy on its own if it were a TRUSTe member.

Amazon's old policy allowed users to opt out of the sharing of their customer data with a third party. With the new policy, Amazon's Smith said, that option is gone _ though the company will still honor previous requests, she said.

``Choice is a bedrock tenet of our program,'' said TRUSTe spokesman Dave Steer. ``You have to at least give the user the ability to say 'No, I'd rather you didn't share my personal data with a third party.''' He added that TRUSTe would not allow one of its members to have such a policy.

Andrew Shen, spokesman for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said a third-party organization is not enough, and renewed his organization's call for congressional action.

``It's a bad thing for consumers if companies are free to change their privacy policies whenever they wish,'' Shen said, adding that there should be ``baseline legal standards'' for the transfer of personally identifiable information such as credit card numbers, names and addresses.

Amazon's Smith said the company changed its policy to reflect new business moves, and to clarify its old policy.

The company has recently announced that it will have co-branded sites with other retailers, including toy merchant Toys R Us. Under the new policy, Amazon can share personal data with those types of partners, including unnamed marketing companies.

``The new one is better for the types of businesses that we're entering into,'' Smith said. ``We tried for account for every conceivable possibility.''

Steer advised consumers to read Amazon's new policy closely, and if there's something they don't agree with, contact the company by e-mail.

``If enough people do that,'' Steer said, ``maybe it'll cause a change of action or thinking on Amazon's part.''