My recent column about Ticketmaster's privacy policy spurred a great deal of discussion both in my weblog and over the Internet. Many readers recounted spam problems that they attributed to Ticketmaster or its "event partners" after purchasing tickets on-line. But the discussion also led to an interesting debate over what constitutes legitimate marketing tactics.
One reader argued that forcing customers to choose between brick-and-mortar retail or giving up their privacy online is wrong. "As a businessman myself, and a believer in free capital markets, I intuitively oppose unreasonable restrictions on business," the reader wrote. "However, as the incidence of identity theft skyrockets, there clearly is a role for the law to play here in protecting customers' prerogatives concerning the dissemination of their personal information. As such, it should be completely unlawful for online vendors, or any vendor for that matter, to tie the dissemination of customer data to the transaction itself. In the long run, it will not serve the legitimate interests of business, much less the customer, to adopt policies that will ultimately have the effect of facilitating and fueling identity theft."
A second reader respectfully disagreed with that viewpoint. "It is a legitimate business model to say to a potential customer: 'I will provide you this product at a discounted price for the right to forward information about you to a third party. You may engage in this transaction if you wish, or decline if you wish. If you decline I will opt not to license you the product at any price.' It is a straightforward and fair contractual arrangement. To make this business model illegal is shortsighted. To suggest it does not serve the legitimate interests of a business is, IMHO, an incorrect conclusion. Providing a product at a lower cash price to a consumer can, in many instances, increase sales and benefit both business and consumer. To suggest sharing of information fuels identity theft has a thread of truth to it. However, information can be shared in manners that would minimize such risks."
A third reader came to the defense of the first: "I'm sorry, but seeing my personal information is NOT a legitimate marketing tactic. I shouldn't be forced to open myself up to just any business, which may or may not be legitimate, to start bombarding me with directed marketing. As another poster said, when we want something, we're quite capable of going out and finding it. Put ads in newspapers and magazines, put up a web site, send copies to reviewers. If I'm not looking for the product in the first place, I am not interested in hearing about it directly from the producer. I learned long ago that almost no advertisement can be taken at face value."
11:47:16 AM 
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