The privacy keepers - magazine publishers and subscriber privacy - includes related article

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, July 1, 1993 by Lambeth Hochwald

A religious group approaches you, the publisher of a major magazine, requesting the names of only your Lutheran subscribers for a special mailing. or, a phone company asks you for the names of high-level government officials who subscribe. Say a bank wants to match its list of bankcard holders with a subscriber file in order to send bank-card applications to all the non-cardholders. what do you do?

These are actual requests, and although the publishers and list-rental managers of the magazines involved refused to release their lists, the proliferation of computerized subscriber data has made one thing certain: Publishers need to consciously shield their subscribers--a magazine's most valuable asset--from data misuse.

The move toward audience targeting has spurred a growing debate, too, about what consumer details mailers should have access to, especially such proprietary information as a subscriber's health history, credit records or buying patterns.

As things stand now, information from subscriber lists flows quite freely, and the list and publishing industries generally hold a status-quo position--in favor of industry self-regulation and opposed to government action that would impede the exchange of names. But the revolution in telecommunications and computer database technology has dramatically improved the ability of business to access and sell personal information about consumers. And with that, the rules of businesses are changing. Privacy advocates are pressing for restrictions, and governments across the country are moving on the issue.

The Direct Marketing Association which represents commercial, mailer has, since 1971, maintained a Mail Preference Service (MPS) name-removal file that now includes 2.5 million consumers who have chosen to opt out of all mailings. To allow consumers more choices about whom they receive mail from, the DMA is now exploring a selective opt-out offer that would enable consumers to specify exactly what kind of information they don't want to receive.

To guide companies, the DMA also offers a Fair Information Practices checklist directed to those hoping to boost list security and ensure that their privacy policies are carried out to the letter. "The industry has built awareness campaigns on the responsibility of using data," says Lorna Christie, the DMA's vice president for consumer affairs. "We have identified privacy as one of the most important customer-service issues, and it is important that consumers have an idea how a name is used once it enters the information stream."

But some privacy advocates find the DMA's name-removal policies futile, claiming that consumers who would rather keep their personal lives private are unaware of the DMA's service. "My point of view is that the DMA is doing a bad job of informing consumers of their rights," says Mary J. Cutnan, an associate professor at Georgetown University's school of business and author of a paper on consumer attitudes toward direct mail, privacy and name removal. "Current name-removal options just aren't effective enough. Most consumers aren't even aware that these exist. As advocates of better business practices, companies should give consumers the chance to get off lists easily-ultimately making the fists better when they're rented."

James R. Rosenfield, chairman and CEO of Rosenfield & Associates, a San Diego, California-based direct-marketing consulting firm, says one of the problems with the list industry is the way information is used. "Database information should be used to help you put together marketing strategies and tactics," he says. "People are getting spooked. There's a large cultural discomfort right now about privacy, and there are limits to just how much a person's identity should be revealed in a highly technological world."

But Mike Manzari, president of the Kleid Company (a direct-marketing company) and chairman of the DMA Ethics Policy Committee, suggests that a lot of discomfort can be avoided if a marketing effort is done in good taste. Let's assume a publisher has a magazine geared to senior citizens. They should avoid the statement, |now that you've turned 65,' in their direct mail," he says. "A publisher wouldn't want to use a list based on medical information, blood-work results or anything that smacks of a breach of confidentiality. When an individual dies, it's a matter of public record, but it's egregious to contact a widow and market something to her."

To date, government has not intensively the list industry, although there are a few federal laws that stipulate the kind of information independent companies can keep. The Privacy Act of 1974, for example, applies only to information federal agencies collect. And the government has cracked down on the credit-reporting industry for selling individual credit information.

This relative lack of government oversight pleases direct marketers. However, at least one proposed privacy-protection bill from the last session of Congress will be discussed again this year. It would give consumers the ability to opt out of having their change-of-address information sold. Another legislative front has been opened on the state level, too, with eight states considering action enabling drivers to forbid departments of motor vehicles from passing along personal information, from their weight to the number of speeding tickets they have received. Altogether, more than 40 states will consider a total of 200 privacy bills in 1993.