There's an entire sea of difference between confirming or refuting a fact of employment that has been put forward during a hiring process, as part of a screen,

There's an entire sea of difference between confirming or refuting a fact of employment that has been put forward during a hiring process, as part of a screen, and sharing everything with anyone who asks, including those shady characters over there who asked every employer to share everything about everyone simultaneously because their business is about building a database and selling access to it. That being said, if the employers actually benefit (even in a collusive way) from sharing that information in such a manner, I'm not sure how to argue that they shouldn't be able to do that.