Belvoir Disclosure of Subscriber Information Michigan Class Action

Belvoir Media Group, LLC publishes Belvoir magazine and newsletter subscriptions. But the complaint for this class action claims that Belvoir violates Michigan’s Preservation of Personal Privacy Act (PPPA) by offering to rent or exchange a mailing list for its subscribers, thus exposing their Private Reading Information in violation of the law. The complaint alleges that Belvoir shares the information with data aggregators, data cooperatives, and list brokers, without the consent of the subscribers.

The class for this action is all Michigan residents who, at any point during the applicable pre-July 31, 2016 time period, had their Private Reading Information disclosed to third parties by Belvoir without their consent.

Belvoir publishes various consumer magazines, books, and newsletters, such as Dogster, CatWatch, Practical Sailor, Aviation Safety, Women’s Health Advisor, University Health News, Harvard Heart Letter, and Environmental Nutrition.

The complaint quotes the PPPA as saying, “[A] person, or an employee or agent of the person, engaged in the business of selling at retail, renting, or lending books or other written materials … shall not disclose to any person, other than the customer, a record or information concerning the purchase … of those materials by a customer that indicates the identity of the customer.”

What is the evidence that Belvoir is sharing this kind of information? Page 3 of the complaint shows a screenshot of a webpage from list broker NextMark, Inc., offering a “Belvoir Media Group Elite MasterFile Mailing List” of more than 700,000 subscribers at a base price of $110 per thousand. The sharing of this list exposes the Private Reading Material of each person on it.

Once the information is sold to data aggregators, data cooperatives, and list brokers, the complaint alleges, these parties can supplement it with other data from their own files, then pass it on to what the complaint calls “aggressive advertisers, political organizations, and [nonprofit] companies.” The first result is likely to be “a barrage of unwanted junk mail[,]” the complaint claims, but it can also be dangerous because it can permit dishonest parties to target vulnerable members of society.

“In addition to causing waste and inconvenience,” the complaint alleges, “direct-mail advertisers often use consumer information to lure unsuspecting consumers into various scams, including fraudulent sweepstakes, charities, and buying clubs.” They often target the elderly, the complaint claims, because they are generally at home, may be lonely, and may have cash reserves or assets that they can access if offers seem attractive.

Consumers are able to sign up for Belvoir subscriptions through different avenues, but the complaint claims that they were never asked to consent to any terms of service, privacy policy, or other information-sharing agreement. Belvoir, the complaint says, therefore has not obtained its customers’ consent to the sharing of their information.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Privacy
Tags: Sharing Personal Information with Third Parties, Your Privacy, information