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If you've ever wondered just how much marketing companies know about you, whether it's your education or income or purchase preferences, today you can see for yourself.

With the beta launch of AboutTheData.com, marketing technology company Acxiom is giving you a glimpse of the online profile your shopping habits have created for you — the one digital marketers use to sell things to you. As The New York Times reported:

"The company collects, stores, analyzes and sells consumer data with the aim of helping its clients — including well-known banks, credit card issuers, insurance companies, department stores and carmakers — tailor marketing to their most valuable current customers or identify new customers.

Back in January, the Food and Drug Administration issued two proposed food safety rules to prevent tainted food from entering the food supply.

According to these 1,600 pages of rules, farmers who don't qualify for exemptions must monitor and document water quality, freezer temperatures, encroaching wildlife and any other possible sources of contamination. But some small farmers are worried their businesses will be killed by paperwork and expensive monitoring systems required by the law.

At the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, Caroline Smith DeWaal says small farmers are overreacting.

"These are common-sense safety measures they need to be taking anyway," DeWaal says."

DeWaal, who is food safety director for CSPI, has been fighting for produce safety reform for more than 15 years. But, she says, Congress didn't get on board with a new law until the food industry decided to back it. She says that happened after a big E. coli-tainted spinach outbreak in 2006.

"The outbreak actually resulted in people not buying or eating spinach not only the fall that it happened, but for many years afterward," she says."

DeWaal says commercial growers and grocers see real revenue loss after big outbreaks. That's why they've been fighting for these new food safety rules.
But small farmers — especially in New England — tell a different story.

At his farm just outside Montpelier, Vt., Joe Buley says he's terrified. He grows cucumbers that he turns into gazpacho and chilled cucumber dill soup.

Buley says the cost of complying with the FDA's new rules would stifle his ability to grow, and could put younger farmers out of the business altogether.

"There's gonna be an enormous amount of documentation, which is going to require an enormous amount of administrative time, or fairly expensive software and monitoring equipment," says Buley.

Mike Taylor, deputy commissioner for foods at the FDA, says most farmers who sell less than $500,000 of product each year are at least partially exempt.

"Together, those exemptions exempt from these new produce safety rules 110,000 of the 190,000 produce operations in this country — that's almost 60 percent," Taylor says.

The problem is all the exceptions to the exemptions, especially for small farmers who don't just farm, but say, turn a cucumber or tomato harvest into soups and sauces. Buley says it's doing things like storing or processing produce that can disqualify farmers from those exemptions.

"You've gotta dig a little deeper into the fine print," he says. "You're going to find you're exempt, except. And the except is gonna nail you. You're gonna get it."

But for all the anxiety the new rules have stirred up among small farmers, the FDA still lacks funding from Congress to enforce them. Without that funding, farmers like Buley, who want to sell to mainstream supermarkets, may find it's grocery stores anxious about lost revenue — not the feds — who are demanding they comply.

On Wednesday, the California Supreme Court holds oral arguments in a case that will determine whether Sergio Garcia, an undocumented immigrant, can become a licensed attorney.

The case has drawn attention from legal groups across the country and comes amid the larger national fight over immigration reform.

On the side of Garcia are the State Bar of California and the California attorney general. Opposing his admission to the bar is the Justice Department, among others.

'This Is The Country I Know'

Garcia was born in Mexico. His parents brought him to the U.S. when he was 17 months old. He moved back and forth between the two countries until he came to California permanently when he was 17. At that time, immigration officials approved Garcia for a green card. That was possible because his dad had a green card. Garcia himself would have to wait to get his own green card until one became available.

He's been waiting for nearly 19 years.

In the meantime, he worked his way through college, law school, and passed the State Bar exam.

"I am 36 years old," he says. "This is the home I know. This is the country I know. And this is the country I want to work for and fight for."

But because he's undocumented, the U.S. Justice Department says he's not eligible to receive a law license.

"To have somebody tell you cannot fulfill your American dream after you have done everything that was required of you and complied with every rule that's out there. It's a very difficult time and it's been a trying time," Garcia says.

'He's Here Illegally'

Larry DeSha, a former prosecutor with the State Bar of California, disagrees with that group's position that Garcia should be granted a law license.

"He can't say he is going to fulfill his duties as attorney when one of those duties is to uphold all federal laws, when he's here illegally," DeSha says. "And no one can administer the oath to him knowing he's going to be illegal the minute he puts his hand down. And the other thing is clients can't pay him money. And any client who finds out that he is illegal has to fire him under federal law. "

Although the Justice Department opposes Garcia's admission to the bar, it has declined to make anyone available for an interview.

State Money Or Annual Dues?

California law actually allows anyone with some form of legal status — including people with a student visa — to get a law license.

But a federal law passed in 1996 prohibits entities funded with state money from granting undocumented immigrants professional licenses. Because the California Supreme Court is funded with state money, the U.S. Justice Department says it is prevented from admitting Garcia into the bar.

Law

Florida Court To Rule: Can A Lawyer Be Undocumented?

South Florida-based Spirit Airlines is known for being cheap. It boasts "ultralow" base fares and then charges for items such as carry-on luggage or printing out your boarding pass at the airport.

That thrift carries over to Spirit's advertising. Even compared with other low-cost airlines, Spirit spends almost nothing on ads. And yet the company makes a surprising splash with its campaigns. A visit to Spirit headquarters reveals the secrets of its marketing.

Spirit Airlines' corporate conference room is about what you'd expect: A drop ceiling, people in button-down shirts sitting around a dark-wood table, listening to a jargony presentation.

"We've been successful at promoting our ultralow fares in a way that keeps costs down," says Bobby Schroeter, vice president of consumer marketing, while presenting a PowerPoint of successful Spirit campaigns.

One of the ads shows a series of islands and four bright-yellow letters.

"We have our very famous, 'M.I.L.F.' ad — Many Islands Low Fares," Schroeter says. The slogan continues with, "hotter and cheaper than ever."

Not coincidentally, "MILF" is also a crass reference to good-looking moms. It's not the kind of thing you're used to hearing from a publicly traded company. But this ad in particular is a good way to look at how Spirit "shock marketing" works.

The process starts with customers like Yessica Diaz and her boyfriend, Edwin Irizarry. They were flying Spirit out of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

"Yeah, because it's cheap," Diaz says.

Diaz is now one of 6 million people on Spirit's email list.

Instead of buying TV commercials, Spirit blasts out email ads like "M.I.L.F." and, unsurprisingly, it gets reactions.

"It's kind of, like, funny and insulting, I guess," Irizarry says.

"That's pretty bad," Diaz says of the ad.

Entertained or aghast, people like Diaz might forward or tweet or blog the ad. Enough of that and the big leagues take note.

Sometimes shows like Fox News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor try to take Spirit reps to task. Discussing the M.I.L.F. ad, Bill O'Reilly said, "A gross expression taken from the movie American Pie was adopted by Spirit Airlines."

Spirit Airlines President Ben Baldanza, who appeared on the show, is very good at turning a scolding into a value proposition. "Our consumer feedback has been positive, and the only thing we think is obscene is the fares that most of our competitors charge," he said.

Just like that, a free advertisement is born.

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