What Is It About Private You Don't Understand?

I normally do not think of myself as a conspiracy theorist, but they’re out to get me.

Someone, somewhere, has sold my name and address to a magazine subscription marketing service.  Since the New Year, I have been receiving WADS of discount subscription offers.  To the left is what I received just today.  I find myself to be a little ticked off.  Whole forests are being destroyed for this garbage, not to mention the stupidity of sending all these offers at the same time, thus diluting the marketing impact. 

I feel my privacy has been violated, however small the intrusion may be.  I work hard to keep my life as simple as possible and that includes not being easy to find.  Shame on whoever took the liberty of ignoring my “keep my information private” request.

How secure is your database?  How well do you respect the privacy of your customers and website visitors?  It’s always nice to see a “we will not share your name with anyone” sign - it’s even nicer when you mean it.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go check my phones for wiretaps...

Comments

[Laura Bennett]

Michele, I hear you!

I got sick of receiving approximately 3 credit card offers to our household every day - I couldn't keep up with the shredding - so I signed up on the Direct Marketing Association's do not mail list, and have noticed an appreciable difference (although it took a couple of months). Perhaps you could try that?
The link is: http://www.dmaconsumers.org/cgi/offmailinglist

Of course, you could have recently signed up for a new magazine so some magazine organization could say that you have a relationship with them and they are within their rights to bombard you with junk...

[Mary Schmidt]

Yes, I'm still getting stuff addressed to "Mr. Achmidt" so I know exactly who sold the name to the lists (the typo started with a non-profit eoons ago.)

Why don't the "direct marketers" get how incredibly stupid this is? Hey, even if we were incredibily lonely hermits whose life lights up when we get anything addressed to us, we're probably not the best targets. And the companies are wasting tons of money that could be better spent on integrated, interactive marketing programs that would attract and keep loyal customers.

Rant on...

[Maureen]

This is so one of my peeves. Charity organizations apparently do the same thing. I made a small donation to the Heart & Stroke Foundation and now suddenly I've been bombarded with donate to use packages from everybody with a charity number. You know the ones with the cards or address labels etc. What a waste of trees. The invasion doesn't make me want to donate.