Doug Borchard@lotus.com (Doug Borchard) (01/03/91)
In response to recent messages that have appeared here about Lotus
MarketPlace, we want to provide some hard facts that we hope will
clear up some of the misinformation surrounding our product.
Lotus MarketPlace: Households is a CD-ROM database of names and
addresses on U.S. consumers, which businesses use for direct marketing.
It is a small -- but highly visible -- part of a multibillion direct
marketing industry that helps businesses deliver products and services
to interested consumers through compiled lists and databases.
Some people argue that the information collected in Lotus MarketPlace:
Households should not be available. However, this information is
already readily available, either as a matter of public record or
through thousands of other commercial lists and database sources. For
example, the 1990 Boston Yellow Pages alone lists more than 50 mailing
list brokers.
Access to information is one of the benefits of a free society. In
developing MarketPlace, Lotus and its data provider, Equifax Marketing
Decision Systems, have strived to balance the right to privacy with the
freedom of information that is a hallmark of our society.
In developing MarketPlace, Lotus and Equifax Marketing Decision Systems
have implemented a number of controls that go far beyond traditional
industry practices for consumer privacy protection. Besides limiting
the data to what is readily available as a matter of public record,
Census data profiling, and similar sources most people can already
access, we have taken three additional and important steps: 1) we are
offering the product only to legitimate businesses; 2) we are providing
consumers with an option to have their names removed from the database;
and 3) we are educating and advising users of the proper legal and
ethical responsibilities for list usage.
What's in Lotus MarketPlace: Households
Name
Address
Age range
Gender
Marital status
Dwelling type
Estimated neighborhood income (based on neighborhood average at the
9-digit zip code level)
Neighborhood lifestyle
What's not in Lotus MarketPlace: Households
Telephone numbers
Individual credit data (number of credit cards, spending levels,
balances, etc.)
An individual's purchase history
An individual's actual income
An individual's actual age
Lotus MarketPlace: Households does not include individual credit data and thus
cannot be used to determine the credit worthiness of an individual.
Privacy Safeguards: Product Features
No telephone numbers
Inability to directly look up a single name
Ability to print/export names and addresses only (versus full records)
Elderly people aggregated into a category "65 and older"
Database includes decoy names that will receive sample mailings
Direct Marketing Association guidelines inserted into retail package
Privacy Safeguards: Purchase Process
Only sample data included in retail package
Signed data order form completed by purchaser
Software license agreement outlines prohibited uses of the product
Product sold only to registered businesses
Approval and verification process of purchaser conducted prior to
delivery of actual data discs
Consumer Name Removal Options:
Consumers can "opt out" of the Lotus MarketPlace: Households database by doing
one of two things:
Write the Direct Marketing Association's Mail Preference Service to
remove their names from MarketPlace and from all other lists that
participate in this nationwide service at:
Direct Marketing Association's Mail Preference Service
P.O. Box 3861
New York, NY 10163-3861
Write Lotus with a request to remove their names from Lotus MarketPlace:
Households at:
Lotus Development Corporation
MarketPlace Name Removal Service
55 Cambridge Parkway
Cambridge, MA 02142
To expedite accurate name removal from MarketPlace, individuals should
include the following information in their
correspondence: name, address, social security number, and signature.
Because MarketPlace is a subscription-based product that will be updated
quarterly, the name-removal process will be ongoing and open to
consumers at their discretion. Because of the normal turnover in the
data, it is expected that a majority of MarketPlace users will elect the
subscription option, thereby minimizing the amount of "old" MarketPlace
information in use.
Chances are that if a consumer is included in the MarketPlace database,
he/she is included in many other databases and lists. Consumers
concerned with being on any lists should therefore direct their name
removal requests to the DMA.
Direct Marketing Association's Ethical Guidelines:
Lotus endorses and strongly encourages adherence by users to the DMA's
guidelines for ethical direct marketing. These guidelines are included
in the product's documentation.
While MarketPlace is perceived as breaking new ground in its use of
CD-ROM and the personal computer to deliver mailing lists, all of the
information in MarketPlace is already available through other published
sources. Lotus believes that the product controls in place preserve
consumer privacy while providing information and new technology
essential to the growth of U.S. businesses.
We hope that this clarifies any questions or concerns.
Doug Borchardsef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan) (01/03/91)
Doug Borchard writes: > In developing MarketPlace, Lotus and Equifax Marketing Decision Systems > have implemented a number of controls that go far beyond traditional > industry practices for consumer privacy protection. Really? Please tell me how I verify that the information about me is correct, and, if wrong, how do I get it corrected? How do you remove someone from the database after you've already sold the CD? How long do you anticipate before someone breaks the encoding method, or otherwise manages to "steal" information they did not pay for (or, more importantly, that was supposed to be removed from the database). > [Also] we are offering the product only to legitimate businesses... And how are you verifying this? Sean Eric Fagan
clear@cavebbs.gen.nz (Charlie Lear) (01/03/91)
Thank you for a lucid, factual and non-sensationalist article regarding Lotus policy. I am sure that such information will make all but the most rabid anti-database people happy. The most noise has so far been generated through people not knowing exactly what information was to be recorded and made available to the marketing companies. Now that we know, I feel there is much less to worry about. Now, who exactly does Lotus consider to be a "legitimate business user"? Charlie Lear
timk@meaddata.com (Tim Klein) (01/04/91)
In response to Doug Borchard of Lotus: I assume you mean that the software provided with the package doesn't provide options for looking up single names or for printing anything other than names and addresses. What if I just don't use your software? What if I write my own software to access the data on the CD-ROM any way I please? Perhaps the data is encrypted. Big deal. As another poster has pointed out, it's only a matter of time before your protection scheme is broken and made available to the unscrupulous public. > Privacy Safeguards: Purchase Process > > Only sample data included in retail package What does "sample data" mean in this context? Your CD-ROMs are just as vulnerable to software piracy as any other package. The number of pirated copies of software out there in the big world is far greater than the number of legitimately purchased copies. Even if you succeed in limiting your sales to "registered" and "verified" businesses (whatever that means to you), do you honestly think your data will not end up in the hands of third parties? Thank you for providing a means of removing my name from your lists. It's kind of a nuisance to have to spend my time and postage to do it though. Since you're the ones who are going to be making all the money from my personal data, it seems as if you should have spent *your* time and postage to ask my permission to put it there in the first place. I know you have no legal obligation to do so -- I just think it would have been a nice thing to do. Golly, you could have used the same envelope to verify that your information about me was correct. Too expensive, you say? Probably about as expensive as all the advertising you're going to buy to make that cancellation address known to the general public. You are going to take great pains to make that option known to the general public, aren't you? While you're at it, maybe you should print the deadline for sending you my deletion request in time to have my info removed from the first release. Surely it's not too late, is it? Timothy Klein
jeffd@ficc.ferranti.com (jeff daiell) (01/04/91)
Doug Borchard writes about Lotus Marketplace, noting: > ... limiting the data to what is readily available as a matter of > public record, Census data profiling, and similar sources ... ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I would point out that the Census is a major invasion of privacy in/of/by itself. Data are supplied under threat of fine, hardly a symptom of a free society. Your claim to being ethical would be far stronger were you to drop this source. Jeff Daiell
mulford@brahms.udel.edu (George Mulford) (01/04/91)
Charlie Lear asks:
> Now, who exactly does Lotus consider to be a "legitimate business user"?
Pretty much anybody, apparently. Today's mail brought a flier
advertising "Businessland Direct, the CD-ROM desktop marketing kit,"
complete with Lotus Marketplace ($599 alone) and the NEC Intersect
CD-Rom player for a combined price of $1,149. Nothing in the flier says
"if you're not a business we won't take your money."
If somebody will send me the $599, I'll be glad to try the experiment of
sending in an order in the name of "A. Slimy Jerk." Just make your
check out to me personally...after all, why shouldn't you trust me as
much as you do Lotus?
George W. Mulfordjhess@orion.oac.uci.edu (James Hess) (01/06/91)
Jeff Daiell, in response to Doug Borchard, writes: > I would point out that the Census is a major invasion of privacy > in/of/by itself. Data are supplied under threat of fine... How is the government (as representatives of the society) to determine who we are, where we are, how we doing, etc., in order to govern well without a census? Ah, you object to government on general principals as it violates free society. So what is this right to freedom, this right to privacy? Are they things I can touch, things I can hold in my hand like a stone? If someone locks me up, does my right to freedom take the keys and release me? It seems these things are not concrete and physical, but abstract and conceptual. I suggest that they are socially, not individually defined, and relative, not absolute. Does your right to privacy give you the right to violate someone else's rights as long as you do it in the privacy of your own home? E.G., to spank a child? Oh, that's not a violation of the child's rights. Says who, you or the child or the local child protection groups? I think it's good that you argue your conception of the right to privacy. I don't think it's good if you think it to be the one, true, objective conception of the right that all others must accept. Is this relevant to the computing and society conference? I think so. For instance, we have the hackers who believe in their absolute right to any information they can get their hands on. I might think my right to privacy should cover the files on my computer, and that others should respect my privacy. Well, then I should expend the effort to encrypt and protect my data, some would say. Why should I need to spend my limited time and money to protect my rights? Should I have to hire a bodyguard to walk down the street with me to enforce my right to be safe from assault? A society doesn't function unless its members respect both the socially defined rights of others and the limits on those rights, and are ready to engage in a little give and take when rights inevitably conflict. It must be a reasonable price to pay for the benefits of participating in a society or we would have all headed for the hills years ago. Comments, anyone? James Hess
mulford@brahms.udel.edu (George Mulford) (01/08/91)
Whoops...I seem to have shot from the hip in my posting last week. Looking more closely at the flier that reached me, I find it advertises Lotus MarketPlace: Business as opposed to Lotus MarketPlace: Household. So my sarcasm at Lotus' expense was (this time anyway) misplaced. They have not yet offered to sell me their household list, and the business one does not contain anything even arguably confidential. George W. Mulford
ables@mcc.com (King Ables) (01/10/91)
> Let me get this straight -- even though this info is a matter of public > record you won't sell it to me so I can find long-lost high school > friends, but you will sell it to junk mail houses so they can waste > forests trying to sell me insurance. All in the name of privacy. You raise a good point about fairness, but on the other hand... I don't want *you* being able to get it because how do I know *you* will only look for your old high school buddies with it!? > Why am I a greater threat to privacy than some corporation? No, admittedly, I'm splitting hairs between what is LIKELY and what is POSSIBLE. Certainly on the whole you are no more or less of a threat to my privacy than a big company... but think about what a big company is going to do with this information. We all know. But what is a "regular person" going to do with it? Who knows? I can at least be *reasonably* sure that a company is only going to bombard me with unwanted literature. Not a pleasant thing to contemplate, to be sure, but acceptable. If Joe Average Public gets his/her hands on it, who knows what he/she might use it for!? One can imagine all sorts of harassments. If you want to argue that someone at that company could still misuse the information, then you may. It's simply less likely. And anyway, most big companies already subscribe to these lists, so if they're likely to misuse it, they're already doing so. > If you're going to help corporations can get it cheap, then you > should help me too I disagree. I am somewhat comfortable thinking that a company, who has an economic investment in such information, will use it to promote themselves and sell their products. I have very little indication as to what use an individual might put this information. *That's* the part that I don't like. King Ables
lee@wang.com (Lee Story) (01/10/91)
> Let me get this straight -- even though this info is a matter of public > record you won't sell it to me so I can find long-lost high school > friends, but you will sell it to junk mail houses so they can waste > forests trying to sell me insurance. All in the name of privacy. This is indeed fascinating. Four issues and one non-issue occur to me, to wit: (1) Isn't Lotus skimming on thin legal ice if they presume to determine what businesses are "legitimate"? Perhaps those that don't compete too directly with Lotus, or some such objective ;-] criterion? Isn't there a law against this sort of "restraint of trade"? (Can they legally refuse to sell me their lists?) (2) In what specific sense is it unethical to redistribute the names and addresses of people in a particular geographical area, with a particular form of employment, or by similar selection criteria. Just because I don't like it (I don't, and I complained in writing to Lotus) doesn't mean that there's anything contrary to the presumed "social contract" about it. (3) I know a delightful fellow who runs Dartmouth's "Second College Grant" in northern New Hampshire. His family effectively has their own 5-digit (!!) zipcode. My own one-family house has an explicit nine-digit zipcode. Thus if their statistical (salary, etc.) breakdowns are by zipcode, some folks will apparently have their personal data revealed directly. Is this the case? (4) Shouldn't we be more concerned with upholding the Bill of Rights (esp. the right to publish in electronic form) than with some rather fuzzily bounded right to privacy? (EFF is of course concerned with this, but I'm surprised that their leadership hasn't issued a specific statement on the Lotus issue.) And the non-issue: (1) I've heard rumors that Lotus has given up the household "Marketplace" idea because of the many complaints received. Is this true? Lee Story