Police Magazine Disclosure of Subscriber Information Michigan Class Action

Police, The Law Enforcement Magazine is a publication of Bobit Business Media, Inc. (BBMI) But information on Police subscribers can be valuable to certain parties, and the complaint alleges that BBMI makes money on this by offering access to its mailing list. According to the complaint, this violates Michigan’s Preservation of Personal Privacy Act (PPPA) by revealing the subscribers’ Private Reading Information without their consent.

The class for this action is all Michigan residents whose Private Reading Information was disclosed to third parties by BBMI, without their consent, at any point during the pre-July 31, 2016 period. (An amendment to the law became effective on July 31, 2016.)

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.”

How do we know that BBMI shares this information? The complaint shows a screenshot of a webpage from list broker NextMark, Inc., offering to rent out a “Police The Law Enforcement Magazine Mailing List,” which involves the Private Reading Information of 65,000 active US subscribers, at a base price of $155 per thousand. The page shows that those who order the mailing list can also get information on things like gender and job title.

Who wants the information? The complaint alleges that it is rented or shared with data aggregators, data cooperatives, and list brokers. These parties, the complaint alleges, 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 the sharing of this information also threatens personal privacy and can be dangerous to subscribers because it can allow 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.” Elderly people may be at particular risk as convenient targets, 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 subscribe to Police through different media outlets, but the complaint claims that they were never asked to consent to any terms of service, privacy policy, or other information-sharing agreement during the time covered by this class action. BBMI, the complaint says, therefore has not obtained its customers’ consent to the sharing of their Private Reading Information.

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