World Privacy Forum Executive Director Pam Dixon told Congress data brokers were regularly selling rape victims, HIV patients and victims of domestic violence names and information for 7.9 cents each, RawStory.com reported.

Dixon, who describes herself as a privacy advocate, said she uncovered it was normal for data brokers to sell information that may be used as a non-financial factor in credit decisions, according to the U.S. Senate report on the hearing.

"The data broker industry as it is today, does not have constraints and it does not have shame," Dixon told Congress, according to RawStory. "It will sell any information about any person regardless of sensitivity for 7.9 cents a name, which is the price of a list of rape sufferers which was recently sold."

Dixon told the members of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee the industry is using "pseudo-scores" in credit decisions based on non-financial factors, according to RawStory.com.

According to Dixon, companies are escaping laws in the Fair Credit Reporting Act that regulates the collection, dissemination, and use of consumer information, including consumer credit information.

"I was stunned in doing my research when I found lists of people who were rape sufferers, people who were genetic disease suffers, people who were victims of domestic violence," Dixon admitted, according to RawStory.com "What is happening is through survey instruments that are operated online and through other methods that are typically consumer generated, people will volunteer this information to websites thinking they are getting help from a website."

Dixon also added that the victims have no idea their information is is being used in this manner.

Committee chairman John "Jay" Rockefeller from West Virginia said he was also "revolted" by Dixon's findings.

"I think it's our job as government to... bring into sunlight what is going on," Rockefeller said, according to RawStory.com "I think its serious, and I think it's a dark underside of American life, in which people make a lot of money and cause people to suffer even more."