Horse & Rider Subscriber Information Shared Without Consent Michigan Class Action

Michigan’s Personal Privacy Protection Act (PPPA) makes it unlawful for a bookseller or library employee to disclose a person’s Private Reading Information to others. But the complaint for this class action alleges that Equine Network, LLC does exactly this when it sells, rents, or exchanges the information of its Horse & Rider subscribers to parties such as data aggregators, data cooperatives, and list brokers without the subscribers’ consent.

The class for this action is all Michigan residents whose Private Reading Information was disclosed to third parties by Equine Network, at any time during the pre-July 31, 2016 time period.

Michigan amended the PPPA, with the amendment going into effect on July 31, 2016; the statutory period in this case is six years, that is, extending back to June 8, 2016.

The complaint quotes the PPPA as saying that 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.”

As evidence of Equine Network’s disclosure of its subscribers’ Private Reading Information, the complaint reproduces a web page from the list broker NextMark, Inc., entitled “Equine Network, Equine Masterfile Mailing List,” offered at a price of $115 per thousand. The complaint alleges that NextMark rents, shares, or otherwise discloses the information to parties including “aggressive advertisers, political organizations, and non-profit companies.” “As a result,” the complaint says, the subscribers “have received a barrage of unwanted junk mail.”

The junk mail may be annoying, but the complaint alleges that this kind of disclosure is also dangerous: “In addition to causing waste and inconvenience, direct-mail advertisers often use consumer information to lure unsuspecting consumers into various scams, including fraudulent sweepstakes, charities, and buying clubs.”

The complaint alleges the information may be given to criminals, fraudulent telemarketers, and others who are working scams, something that is particularly dangerous where the elderly are concerned.

According to the complaint, “Equine Network does not seek its customers’ prior consent, written or otherwise, to any of these disclosures and its customers remain unaware that their Private Reading Information and other sensitive information is being rented and exchanged on the open market.” Customers can subscribe to the magazine through many outlets, the complaint claims, and are never asked to agree to any information-sharing policy when they sign up.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Privacy
Tags: Sharing Personal Information with Third Parties, Using Your Private Information Without Consent, Your Privacy