The Direct Marketing Association has expelled two companies and one has resigned for not complying with the association’s Privacy Promise, the DMA announced in a statement last night.
The DMA said the expelled companies are Sportsman’s Market Inc., Batavia, OH and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business. Portland Newspapers, resigned its membership earlier this year, in part at least, because it felt it could not certify compliance with the Promise. DMA president H. Robert Wientzen said the association is not aware of the “specific information management practices of these companies.”
The board of directors voted to expel Sportsman’s Market effective immediately. The cataloger indicated that it did not feel it was appropriate for the DMA to dictate how companies managed customer information, the statement said.
Bill Anderson, a spokesman for the cataloger, said yesterday that the company’s membership had expired Sept. 30 and that it had opted not to renew its membership.
“Clearly, The DMA feels it is important for our industry to protect the privacy of individual’s information, and this type of effective self-regulation is preferable to government involvement,” Wientzen said.
In addition, the DMA alleged that Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business in New York failed to respond to repeated association appeals for certification. It then belatedly indicated that it has a policy not to sign such agreements, the statement said. The school will be expelled on Nov. 30 if it does not certify compliance.
When Sportsman’s Market was contacted last week regarding the pending expulsion, the company’s founder and chairman, Hal Shevers, declined comment but issued a prepared statement to DIRECT Newsline (Nov. 19) that said the company “has not signed the Privacy Promise since our company policy has always been and continues to be that any customer privacy request is immediately honored.”
He added that “We have the highest standards in the industry and our company’s reputation speaks for itself.”
A limited number of other companies have made a commitment to comply and are in the final stages of implementing the Promise. These cases will be resolved early next year, the statement said. More than 99% of members are in compliance.
“As direct marketing continues to grow online and offline, we think personal privacy will continue to be an issue for some consumers,” Wientzen said. “The Privacy Promise is an effective means of addressing these concerns while maintaining access to consumer information for legitimate marketing purposes.”
The DMA also stated that it is strengthening its monitoring and enforcement program that includes reviewing members’ information practices relative to the Promise and contacting a sizable number of member companies each year asking them to document compliance with the Promise’s requirements.
In addition, the association said it will enforce the program through the peer review work of its existing Committee on Ethical Business Practice, which will refer cases of non-compliance to the DMA board of directors for final action. This can include expulsion and making that action public.
The DMA also will pursue reports from consumers of possible violations of the Promise. Written correspondence may be sent to: DMA Privacy Promise, Direct Marketing Association, 1111 19th Street NW, Suite 1100, Washington, DC 20036-3603.
All incidents will be reviewed by the ethics and consumer affairs staff for possible case development. Where it appears that there is a violation of the Promise, the case will be referred to the Committee on Ethical Business Practices for further action, the statement said.
DMA vice president of ethics and consumer affairs Pat Faley last week had outlined three reasons DMA members under scrutiny have declined to comply with the Promise. First, some believe that it is not an appropriate role for a trade association to mandate certain practices, such as the Promise. Second, technological system’s problems have prohibited timely compliance. Lastly, the requirements are overly burdensome.
Of the DMA’s 4,600 members, approximately half–consumer marketers–are required to comply with the Promise.
The Promise was instituted July 1. It requires consumer marketers and their suppliers to disclose to customers when contact information about them may be shared with other marketers, to provide customers with opt-out capabilities and to honor those opt-out requests in-house as well as through the DMA’s mail and telephone suppression services. An e-mail suppression service E-MPS will be available in January.
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