Jerry Cerasale, the Direct Marketing Association’s senior vice president, government affairs, took advantage of his presence on two Federal Trade Commission panels to outline the organization’s positions on third-party data use.
Cerasale was featured on two panels at Tuesday’s information marketplace workshop, sponsored by the FTC. He emphasized that the data under discussion was marketing information used for sending solicitations. It would not be used to make employment offers or to refuse insurance coverage.
In response to concerns raised by privacy advocates, he said that medical information, such as that collected from doctor’s offices or prenatal classes, should be collected only on a consumer consent basis. That basis, Cerasale said, was the standard within the direct marketing industry.
Profiling information gathered from a third party, he continued, was not purchased, but rented on a one-time basis. When used in modeling, such data is sent directly to a service bureau, and not turned over to the marketer.
Cerasale positioned data use as a tool that allows marketers to offer opportunities to otherwise unreachable targets. He gave the example of now-defunct Grollier’s, which made Dr. Seuss books available at a discount to rural households with children that are located more than 50 miles from a bookstore.
“This is the only way lower-income families can receive these products,” he said.
Cerasale also defended the industry against legislated opt-in standards. He used the example of a hypothetical Web site that gave notice that it collected information for share and rent. By doing so, the site was able to keep costs down.
But the hypothetical site did not give customers the opportunity to make purchases without giving up data. According to Cerasale, the site’s notice would clearly indicate that providing opt-out mechanisms would increase its costs, and that consumers not agreeing to have their data shared should shop elsewhere.
“Is this illegal? A lot of what we are discussing would make it so,” Cerasale said.
The FTC-sponsored “Information Marketplace: Merging and Exchanging Consumer Data” workshop was held on Tuesday.
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