National Review Subscriber Information Shared Without Consent Michigan Class Action

Can magazine publishers disclose the names of, and other information on, their subscribers without the subscribers’ consent? The complaint for this class action alleges that this has been prohibited in Michigan by the state’s Personal Privacy Protection Act (PPPA), but that National Review, Inc. has done it anyway, disclosing to third parties information on subscribers to its National Review magazine.

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

The “pre-July 31, 2016 time period” refers to the period before an amendment to the PPPA went into effect on July 31, 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.”

How do we know that National Review has disclosed this information to others? The complaint displays a screen shot of a webpage from the list broker NextMark, Inc., entitled, “National Review Active Subscribers Mailing List,” offering information on the publication’s more than 98,000 subscribers at a base price of $135 per thousand.

The complaint alleges that the information is rented, exchanged, or otherwise shared with data aggregators, data cooperatives, and other third parties, without the consent of the subscribers. The information offered, the complaint says, includes names, home addresses, and names of publications they take, with other individualized data such as demographics and gender also available.

This disclosure has resulted in “a barrage of unwanted junk mail” sent to subscribers, the complaint claims, but this annoyance is not the only problem. The complaint alleges, “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 disclosures can be particularly dangerous for the elderly, who are often targeted by telemarketing scammers, because they are tend to be at home, may be lonely and open to talking to a stranger, and often have cash reserves.

According to the complaint, “National Review 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 they 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