[comrade1]

To Europeans wondering what this is, these are companies that track every financial transaction of Americans in ways that would violate dozens of privacy laws outside the u.s., and have become the de facto source for determining credit risk, rather than a simple search of court records for open or pending debt issues.

[saryant]

Err, Europe has credit bureaus too:

http://aei.pitt.edu/33375/1/ACCIS-Survey_FinalReport_withCov...

Jump to page 31 to see what is stored by the bureaus in each country.

[comrade1]

I guess we're spoiled in Switzerland.