The Senators' December 2011 petition urged companies to 'remove and no longer post on your website deceased individual's Social Security numbers' because they believe that the benefits provided by making the Death Master File readily available online are greatly outweighed by the costs of disclosing such personal information, and that '...given the other information available on your website -- full names, birth dates, death dates --Social Security numbers provide little benefit to individuals undertaking to learn about their familial history.' While the letter conceded that posting the Social Security numbers 'is not illegal' under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), it also went on to point out that 'legality and propriety are not the same thing.'