We still can't figure out the Direct Marketing Association's statement last month that its board has reaffirmed DMA list- abuse guidelines.
Coming out against list abuse is a little like coming out against wife beating: There can't be much argument. Worse yet, the DMA doesn't name names.
Well, we've spent over a decade reading between the lines of DMA pronunciamientos, and any fool can see that this one is about The Body Shop, which used the subscriber list of Business Ethics magazine last year without permission. The key line in the DMA statement is one saying that mailers must "obtain the list owner's approval of a sample mailing piece."
Only a scoundrel could argue with that, although it doesn't seem to fit the facts in The Body Shop case, in which the wrong piece allegedly was submitted. Of course, the list manager, Stevens-Knox, can't produce the deceitful piece, and neither can Business Ethics, though both say they saw it.
But it's odd that the thing business owners feared before the computer revolution - theft of their names - has now become almost commonplace. And it isn't technology driving it so much as old-fashioned lying on paper.
A firm called Spaletto Enterprises secured several Time Warner lists by writing to Time Warner's list manager, Kleid Co., on Sybervision stationery. How did these boneheads get the letterhead? By somehow winning a consulting contract with Sybervision.
Dahlonega Mint Inc. misused the lists of several legitimate companies by simply renting the files and then mailing them a dozen times, then sued the list managers, saying it had never signed any contracts specifying one-time use.
All these cases fall into one of two basic list-theft categories: dumb and dumber. Most abuses are pathetically easy to uncover, thanks to decoys.
There is, of course, a more sophisticated brand of pilferage that brings to mind this line from a folk song: "Some folks rob you with a six gun, and some with a fountain pen." It occurs when a middleman in the marketing chain decides to sell data it is holding (data normally belonging to its clients).
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