off the list

Exorbitant handling fees. Weak seat selection. Jammed phone lines.

To this august list of Ticketmaster’s ills, add unapologetic name serializer.

Here in LA, TM has exclusive rights to all the events at Staples Center — including the Lakers, Clippers, and unfortunately for me, the woeful Kings.

Heck, StaplesCenter.com even links directly to TM.com.

So TM must be the best, safest, most convenient way to buy tickets, right? Wrong.

TM spreads your personal info around faster than a monkey with a handful of poo — but without the chimp’s restraint.

To order from TM, you need to set up a “My Ticketmaster” account.

Which, according to TM’s privacy policy, means you agree to let TM to provide your info to any of the following:

• Event providers, such as the venues, promoters, artists’ representatives and fan clubs, teams, leagues and others who are involved in, produce or bring you events;
• Service providers, such as credit-card payment processors, performing services on our behalf;
• Other IAC businesses;
• Other businesses with which we partner or which we carefully select to offer you products, services, and promotions through our website or offline; and
• Other third parties in limited circumstances, such as complying with legal requirements, preventing fraud, and protecting the safety of our users.

Few! For a minute there, I was worried they might not be discreet.

I spoke with a TM representative — 866.448.7849 — and was told:

There is no way to opt-out of allowing Ticketmaster to share your personal information for direct marketing purposes.

FYI – this is not just a Ticketmaster policy — it’s the corporate privacy policy of IAC.

IAC includes such names as Home Shopping Network, Ask.com, Evite, Lending Tree, Match.com, RealEstate.com, among a gazillion others.

Any of those folks ever send you something? Even though you’ve never used them?

Yeah, me, too.

Ticketmaster, for being a name serializer without regret — plus having a confusing, contradictory privacy policy — you are On My List.

BTW — Before using TM, check your local Craig’s List.

Many licensed ticket brokers advertise there and provide better service and seat selection than TM, without all the direct marketing baggage.