Washington state regulators have penalized Puget Sound Energy almost $1 million for violating consumer privacy laws by sharing customers' private information with an outside marketing partner without the customers' written permission. PSE transferred more than 65,000 telephone calls from new or relocating residential customers to a firm that then tried to sell them telephone, lawn and newspaper services, the Bellevue, WA, utility said in a settlement reached Jan. 22 with the Washington State Utilities and Transportation Commission. Here we conclude that PSE intentionally violated the rule as part of a corporate decision to sell its customers' private information for financial gain, the three-member commission said in its written decision, noting that PSE had participated in the rulemaking process that resulted in the privacy regulation being adopted just one month before PSE began its marketing program. Puget Sound Energy ref