Texas Letter Mailed to Names Compiled from SRDS Records
If you’re one of many who have been wondering where the Texas AG’s office got the names of list brokers that it mailed its threatening letter to in October, the question has been answered: The Direct Marketing List Source by SRDS.
An attorney for AG John Cornyn popped down to the local library at the University of Texas and compiled the list of 1,200 list brokers and other businesses from SRDS records, said Tom Kelley, a spokesperson for the AG’s office.
The letter, dated Oct. 12, arrived from the AG’s office warning “list brokers and others that provide names and addresses” that a new sweepstakes law prohibits many common practices. It said violators-mailers and the provider of names and addresses–could be subject to fines that could reach into the billions of dollars. The letter was signed by John Greytok, a special assistant to the AG, and sent to 1,200 businesses.
In the meantime, the Direct Marketing Association, through a Texas law firm, had requested on Oct. 22 that the AG’s office provide the DMA with a list of the recipients the letter was sent to so it could contact those businesses to explain the provisions of the law pertaining to list providers and calm fears. That letter, signed by Keith Strama of the law firm McGinnis, Lochridge & Kilgore, requested that the information be submitted to the firm by Nov. 1.
AG spokesperson Kelley said the list had been sent in time to meet the Nov. 1 deadline. “This was an open records request and we fulfilled it,” he said.
Strama could not be reached for comment and no further details were available.
The letter had so angered many in the list community that some list managers began removing names with Texas addresses from files. And brokers encouraged sweeps mailers to omit Texas for fear they could be held liable for the huge fines if the new complex sweeps law is violated, which took effect Nov. 1.
Shortly after the letter appeared, the DMA responded to the Texas AG in a letter from Jerry Cerasale, the DMA’s vice president of government affairs, expressing concern over the “content, tone and misleading nature” of the letter.
The DMA was particularly concerned about two issues. One was that the letter did not make it clear that list providers are liable when they know that the information used for a sweepstakes is in violation of the law, language the DMA fought to have included in the final version of the bill. The other concern was that the letter did not state that the law does not apply if the most valuable prize is less than $50,000.
