Credit Card Finds Loophole in Privacy Law

I’m a bit of an environmentalist.  My undergraduate degree in Chemistry makes me a little sensitive to environmental issues.  Now, you won’t see me chaining myself to a tree, but my blood pressure does rise a little when I see pop cans in the garbage. 

My latest beef is the inserts that arrive in my mail.  My gas bill almost needs extra postage.  There’s one page for the bill and then half a dozen inserts trying to sell me services by various related companies.  When I get my mail and sort through it, I end up with about four pieces of paper that I need and an inch of inserts, envelopes and mass mailings that go straight into the recycling bin.  All I see is waste!

There are now some rules that determine how companies use your personal information.  They used to be able to sell your personal information willy-nilly.  Now, they need your “permission” to do so.  I use the word “permission” VERY loosely, as that permission is often hidden in fourteen pages of legal gobbledygook that the company calls a “privacy policy”.  The policy usually requires YOU to withdraw your permission.  It’s the classic “negative option” made infamous by Rogers, where, if you don’t withdraw your permission, they’ll assume that you have given it.

The latest one really got to me.  In my VISA bill (I won’t say which Bank), I got a “Rewards Certificate”.  Cool.  I like rewards.  I read it, and then I read it again.  Then I started cussing.

This Certificate had the Bank’s logo on it.  However, close inspection revealed that it was no “reward”.  it was merely a marketing campaign by a company unrelated to the Bank to sell cheap-looking merchandise.  Instead of the Bank selling my personal information to Crap Merchandiser (“CM”) (and having to ensure that it followed its Privacy Policy), it is charging CM a fee to put the inserts in the monthly bills with the Bank’s logo on it.  (Of course, I don’t have proof that the Bank charged CM to do this, but can you imagine for a millisecond that the Bank was doing this for nothing?)  My “reward” is that, as a VISA customer of that Bank, I got the privilege of receiving yet another mass mailing targeted at my wallet.  Oh lucky me!

The Bank is not selling or giving out your personal information, that’s true.  But it is making money by using your personal information to distribute marketing materials.  (Since when are banks in the advertising and distribution business?)

The privacy laws are supposed to prevent people from distributing your personal information to other people.  What good is that if they will simply act as the other people’s agent and distribute the junk mail to you on their behalf?  The effect is pretty much the same: you still get the junk mail and solicitations, but there is now a middleman with whom you already have a business relationship.