Junk Mail 101: Warranty Cards, Surveys and Your Personal Data

There have been warnings in recent years about giving too much information to companies on product registration cards—commonly called warranty cards—and consumer surveys. Still, data marches on, and currently there are over 700 junk mail lists on the market covering these two subjects. In the meantime, the poor consumer muddles through what’s legit and what isn’t and ends up becoming just another record in the junk mailers’ databanks.

Re. the warranty cards, we’ve been told we don’t really have to provide all the extras like age, income, children, etc; only your name, address and the serial and model number of the product. By law, we don’t even need to return it because we are covered automatically. For the surveys, our name, address and hundreds of personal facts about ourselves are necessary to receive cents-off coupons or product samples.

The fact that companies are more interested in our private data than protecting us should raise flags and peak our suspicion, but some of us go ahead and supply the information anyway. Well, don’t. And, I’ll tell you why.

But first, you must wonder how I know that so many of us have given up this detailed info. The answer comes from my 35 years’ experience as a mailing list broker. Two junk mail companies alone, have over 90-million individuals’ records on file. They are BehaviorBank, a division of Experian, one of the top three credit reporting companies. The other is Lifestyle Selector, a part of Equifax, also in the top three providing credit reports.

Links above are provided to their sites, but you won’t get information from Behaviorbank about numbers of names, personal data, etc. Only a telephone number. It seems they are not willing to lay out for the consumer what they know about them. However, the Lifestyle Selector site provides a wealth of facts, most of which is compatible with the Behaviorbank list. Trust me. A visit there will blow your mind over exactly what private information we’ve readily given up.

Each processes the data from product registrations and/or surveys into a neat, humongous database that reflects hundreds of personal identification characteristics about how you live each day. Then, they match this with what they already know about you from their demographics and lifestyle databases. The result is 91 million households whose most intimate details read like an open book.

There is one more large company selling product registration information, by the name of WARRANTY IT! Product Registrants. With some 7.2 million of your names, they also sell your age and income. Even Rodale, publishers of Prevention magazine sells its list of warranty card registrants. Their company representative stated they have access to this purchase info from the buyers of products advertised in the magazine.

Read the article from Privacy Rights Clearinghouse covering the California law, passed in 2004, requiring warranty cards to be “up front” with customers. It also confirms my earlier statements on how all this information ends up for sale in the marketplace. The Electronic Privacy Information Center has an excellent report on the profiling of individuals through capturing all their private information and daily lifestyle habits. You can find a piece specific to warranty cards about halfway down the site. This is a must read.

Aside from these companies ignoring our privacy and opening our life to the public and potential identity thieves, we’ve given them carte blanche to sell the treasures of our personal existence. Do you want your health problems, including the prescription drugs you take, available for open review? How about your dress or pants size and the diet you are on? And then there is the frequent traveler who gambles and is also a smoker. Your political views, reading habits, the music you listen to and your investment practices. It’s all out there, ready to be plucked, and sold for astronomical prices.

There is one person who not only agrees with my concept that we should have 100% control over our names and personal data, but he also has his own solution for the problem. Another must read is Kevin Bedell’s blog, Where do Intellectual Property and Personal Information Intersect? He makes some very good points and, although dated back to 2002, it just shows that we’ve been thinking about the nature of this beast for some time. In my case, over ten years.

Let me pose some particularly relevant questions now:

1. Do you have any idea how much of your private data is warehoused by junk mailers?
2. Do you have the slightest concept of the sizeable number of sources available to these companies where they can whisk away your personal information at the drop of a few bucks?
3. Do you know that the junk mailers are taking in $4 billion each and every year on your name and personal data?
4. Should you be more than slightly suspicious over the way junk mailers manipulate your name and storehouse of confidential knowledge and sell it on the open market?
5. Does it make good sense that you should share in the $4 billion made annually from the sale of your name and private information?

I’ll be covering these and hundreds more questions in future blogs.

Finally, in the whole warranty card and consumer survey fiasco, the data gatherers are obviously nervous over the loss of your personal data, especially exact age, which is considered a key factor in some junk mail offers. It is also a prime tool in the committing of identity theft. But, with their circuitous ingenuity, I can assure you the junk mailers will not give up the search for new sources until every public and private record available has been exhausted.

Catching Up With European Privacy Law. NOT!

You have to read the article in the July 4, 2005, Newsweek, titled “Grand Theft Identity.” Along with some excellent pointers to prevent identity theft, including actual case studies, it features one of my favorite people in the fight to control your name and personal data. It’s Beth Givens, founder of Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego, and you should visit their site often to help you protect your privacy.

So what does the Newsweek piece have to do with European Privacy Law? Just one more example of the huge deficit in this country in the protection against ID theft, and how the Europeans have taken one giant step to stop it there.

On the last page of the article, California Senator Dianne Feinstein states that she “…would like to give consumers the power to keep their records out of databases.” She goes on to indicate “ the opt-in approach is the law in Europe.” That’s the giant step. The European Union may not have been able to decide on a constitution, but they’ve done one hell of a job insuring the privacy of their citizens. It’s like this, if you don’t want to, you don’t have to.

The law has been in effect since 1995 and, in ten years, there have been no widespread business losses, as far as I know. In the EU Data Protection Directive, the consumer must be given the choice to opt-out (which is basically opt-in, in reverse) of having business disclose their personal data or, using it for any purpose, other than that for which it was collected.

Further, an organization must give the consumer access to their private information, a stipulation that would probably horrify most junk mailers and data brokers in the U.S. There is no way they would want the American public to know just what and how much personal data has been collected on them. You can see another version of the law at the New England In-House site, a quarterly publication of Lawyers Weekly.

And then there’s the Law Blog from David Sorkin, a law professor in Chicago, who questions the Bush administration in pressuring European regulators to weaken their privacy standards. The President is worried about our financial institutions having difficulty conducting business abroad. I’m worried about our financial institutions having difficulty conducting business, without compromising our personal data, in the U.S. What about you?

Sorkin provides a link for the article: EU asked to tone down privacy standards. The whole idea is an insult to the American consumer and yet another example of how this administration favors business over the individual. Another piece, Congress fears European privacy standards, published just over three weeks earlier, apparently put Bush in motion when Cliff Stearns, R-Fla, called on him to take the matter up with the EU…quickly.

Both articles are dated (March of 2001), but show clear evidence where the Congress and the current administration are headed in protecting you against identity theft. And I say that, despite the recent ChoicePoint, LexisNexis, etc. incidents and the typical Congressional uproar that has resulted . Without pressure from grass roots efforts, Congress is not likely to enact legislation that would give you the giant step: the right to opt-in.

Although I admire the EU for the opt-in step, it still is not enough. We must pass a law that gives consumers 100% control over their names and personal data. If we can pull this off, maybe the EU will follow our lead.

Junk Mail 101: The Internet, Cyberspace and Identity Theft

Stories abound over the beginnings of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Remember when we thought nothing could surpass television? Well, it did, and with a momentum that will be hard to duplicate in the future, if ever. With a series of commands on your computer, you can be anywhere, doing just about anything. But beware, because this medium of communications continues to take first prize for scams that will quickly relieve you of your money, your name, your personal data, and possibly even result in identity theft.

Of course, the junk mailers are there again, excitedly working their way through a goldmine of data that is currently the new wave in selling your name. While the old method using the postal address brings in around fifteen cents, your e-mail address is worth up to seventy-five cents, with an average of around twenty-five to thirty cents. And that would be OK if some of this money was going in your pocket.

Industry giant, America Online, sells their members’ names for about nineteen cents. There are many other Internet and e-mail lists on the market, but the colossus is one called Able Double Opt-In Consumer E-Mail Masterfile. Almost six million names at twenty-six cents a pop, and they know over three-hundred-fifty intimate details about your household. Go to http://www.act1lists.com, and click on “List Categories,” then “Consumer Mail Order & Responder Lists,” then scroll down and click on “Double Opt-In Consumer E-Mail Master” to see what they know about you.

They can identify: your marital status, age, income, gambling habits, software you own, adoptions in the household, credit cards, those who bank or invest on-line, your religion and political preference, whether or not you are gay/lesbian and looking for a mate, your occupation and medical ailments. All of these private facts, plus more than three-hundred more, are locked away in this company’s database, ready for immediate access.

It is well worth your time and effort to find out how your life has been made an open book, just because you answered an online survey to receive e-mail offers. You also get an inside peek at one of the companies selling your name and personal data.

And here’s a frightening scenario. What if your name and personal data like this were to end up on the street through the efforts of a hacker and then is sold under the table to unprincipled businesses? A health insurance company could use the medical ailments to deny coverage. A large corporation could turn down applicants for a job due to their weakness for gambling or for being gay or lesbian. The possibilities are limited only by what private information is available.

The huge on-line retailer, Amazon.com, went round-and-round with the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and Junkbusters about change in their privacy policy in September of 2000. The two organizations, in May of 2001, asked the FTC to stop Amazon.com from disclosing customer information without their consent. However, the FTC sided with Amazon.com, commenting that the company does not sell or rent customer names or personal information and would not do so unless it allowed them to opt-out first.

In a personal experience, my wife went on-line to check Amazon.com’s new apparel line in November of 2002, surfing through the offers but buying nothing, not even asking for information. We were more than surprised a few days later when she received an e-mail from Jeff Bezos, the firm’s CEO, thanking her for her supposedly unchaperoned visit. No big deal, perhaps, but clear evidence that our privacy is compromised on almost every move we make.

It is painfully clear that the battle over control of your name and personal data extends full force into the Internet age. And it is because of this very problem that Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina introduced the Online Personal Privacy Act in April of 2002. The 107th session of Congress adjourned before taking up the bill and apparently it is still in limbo. Senator Hollings has considered reintroducing the legislation. Perhaps you should contact your members of Congress and ask them to support Senator Hollings’ bill.

Junk Mail 101: Charitable Organizations Sell Your Name Too

Did you ever wonder why, when you contribute to just one charity, you get an avalanche of mail from all the others? I’ll tell you why. Your name breeds like rabbits. Moves with lightning speed from one philanthropic organization to another. It’s the call of the wild: ‘hey, we hooked someone today and we’ll sell you our names if you’ll sell us yours.’

Perhaps “hook” is a bit callous, but this side of the junk mail industry has to compete for your dollar just like the commercial companies selling you merchandise. And that’s just fine as long as the charity is spending the majority of the money on the actual “cause” and not on fundraising efforts. According to the Better Business Bureau (BBB) Wise Giving Alliance, non-profits should spend at least 65 percent of total expenses on program activities. Let’s see how some of them fare.

I picked seven large organizations, strictly by random, and have listed them in alphabetical order. If you don’t find your favorites, go to the BBB’s Wise Giving Alliance and click on “Charity Reports” at the upper left column. If they aren’t registered with the BBB, go directly to their site and look under financial information. If it isn’t there and an e-mail to the charity doesn’t produce an answer, you might think twice about your next donation. Now, the players and the percentages devoted to their programs:

Alzheimer’s Association: 75%
American Diabetes Association: 76%
American Heart Association: 73%
Disabled American Veterans (DAV): 74%
March of Dimes: 76%
Muscular Dystrophy Association: 77%
Sierra Club: 90%



They all sell your name, averaging almost 8 cents each. As a matter of reference, the typical commercial name sells for about 12 to 15 cents each. And the philanthropic fundraisers are included in the total junk mail take of $4 billion on names and personal data each year.

Most charitable organizations don’t collect, and offer for sale, as much personal data as do the commercial junk mailers and large data brokers. It costs more to capture or add this information and most of them are on a limited budget. Selling your name is more of an income-replacement-tool, and probably offsets the necessity of having to solicit more donations.

On the political side, there’s a funny piece from the Washington Post dating back to July of 1993. The Great Minnesota Progressive blog posted How GOP Computers Got My Mama; And How they Might Get You. The WP reporter tells of his mother receiving a “special” junk mail invitation to President Reagan’s return from his historic European trip. She can’t go and tells her son she will RSVP to let them know, which he, of course, tells her isn’t necessary.

She does anyway, later making a contribution to the GOP, and, naturally, a deluge of mail follows. Finally, a few years later, she begs her son to get the Republican party off her back. “I send them money but they just keep asking for more,” she said. The son tries to explain the fundraiser’s strategy of “giving more means asking for more.” To make a long story short, the mother became ill and the family had to take over her affairs. It was then that they found the humongous amount of political and charitable junk mail, all resulting from her initial contribution. The story is well worth reading.

It isn’t fair, however, to put the fundraising community in the same category as the typical junk mailer. Aside from the fact that, in most cases we are talking about an honorable, worthwhile cause, they don’t really feed at the same trough when it comes to the obsession for control over your name and personal data. How many cases of identity theft have you heard of coming from doling out to the Sierra Club?

The moral of this story is that fundraising organizations are a part of the junk mail community. They do business in a similar way to the commercial companies but their higher purpose puts them on a different level. The telemarketing Do-Not-Call law recognized this and that is why they are exempted. So, pick your charity of choice and give as generously as you can, but make sure your donation is going to the right place.

Re-clarification Of the Basic Issues In the Control Of Your Name and Personal Data

Recently, it came to my attention that there was some much needed clarification of my concept that you should have 100% control over your name and personal data. The idea is really not as complex as it might seem and this post is a follow-up to simplify, at least, the basics.

First, let’s backtrack and cover the foundations of the idea. It is my judgment, based on thirty-five years of selling your name in the junk mail industry, and ten years researching the concept, that you should be given 100% control over your name and personal data. You should receive that right through federal legislation, which is the goal of my grass roots efforts. There are at least five major points in favor of passing this law:

1.You will have complete control over how your name and private information are used in the marketplace.

2.You will be assigned a unique ID which will completely replace the Social Security number for purposes of identification.

3.You will be able to opt-in, not have to opt-out, in receiving any junk mail offers.

4.You will be able to literally eliminate all identity theft.

5.The JACKPOT: You will share in the proceeds of the sale of your name and personal data.

As an added benefit, you would be given the option to act as your own watch-dog to approve any credit-related transactions in your name. This simplified and sophisticated system of notification would stop ID theft in its tracks but would require your immediate reaction to an e-mail or telephone call. Even if you decide not to participate in the individual oversight, which would nip it in the bud, you would still be covered by the current guarantees for limits on liability.

Personally, I cannot understand why anyone would not want to maintain a tight fist over all aspects of their privacy. So there’s a little inconvenience to replying to an e-mail or telephone call, but look at the rewards. For the first time, and backed by law, you get to decide about what remains private about you and your family.

Okay, there must be some exceptions, and there are: the primary one being Homeland Security. This does not mean that government has the right to access your name and private information for any reason it chooses. But, if it is truly a high level security situation, the feds must have that right. Others may exist to accommodate data needed by business where you have officially opted-in, as well as certain requirements in the medical and financial fields. However, Congressional oversight would have to be established for any of these intrusions.

We’re still working on the final plan, so make your opinions known by leaving me your comments. Remember, the 2006 elections are just over the horizon, and we could make some headway with Congressional leaders sympathetic to consumer causes and maybe elect a few new ones that will vote our way.