off the list

The evil empire heard my plea — and shrugged.

I sent both Ticketmaster — and it’s diabolical overlord IAC — emails regarding their privacy policy which states:

We will not share your personal information … except when we inform you in advance and give you the opportunity to opt out.

In reality — where TM must assume we do not live — the only thing you can opt out of are annoying email alerts from TM.com.

Here is the reply I received from the Chief Privacy Counsel for IAC:

This is in response to your two emails to the IAC Privacy mailbox dated January 23 and January 24, 2008 regarding the IAC and Ticketmaster privacy policies. As I understand your concern, you believe that Ticketmaster (and IAC) should allow individuals to opt out of having personally identifiable information about them provided to the types of third parties that are identified in the privacy policy. In particular, this relates to event providers for the Ticketmaster policy. As you point out, it is not possible to order tickets for an event without providing your name and address. You can understand why we need that information in order to process your order and facilitate your ticket request. For some time it has been part of the policy and business practice of Ticketmaster to provide the names and personal information of individuals who purchase tickets to the event providers. As a ticketing services provider acting as an agent on behalf of the event provider, it is a significant part of the way this business is conducted. More importantly, the event providers need the contact information for those who purchase tickets to their events. They may use this information to assist in providing important customer service notifications related to the event as well as in marketing of other events they may produce that may be of interest to those ticket purchasers. Purchasers are aware of who these event providers are and can contact them directly to opt out of marketing activities (as they can directly with Ticketmaster as well). As an alternative, you can purchase tickets through a Ticketmaster retail outlet or at the venue box office without providing your contact information.

With respect to IAC’s privacy policy, it is a general policy that applies across most IAC businesses, but the IAC website does not provide consumer services directly. Therefore, each IAC website has specific provisions that relate to the business activities provided at that website. Thus, Ticketmaster addresses disclosures to event providers, while other businesses deal with applicable disclosures to other types of third parties (such as service professionals at Service Magic).

At the present there is no legal requirement that websites provide a right to opt out from this type of disclosure. We believe that our privacy policy describes this practice clearly as do other disclosures presented when you purchase tickets. We encourage you to follow up with the event providers to determine what choices you may have for collection and use of personally identifiable information.

To summarize, if you buy tickets thru TM.com, they will sell or otherwise provide your personal info to a wide range of companies related to the event and there’s nothing you can do about it.

TM feels they are acting within the letter of the law — because there is no law.

And to add insult to audacity, you are responsible for tracking down these other companies.

Their bottom line, if you don’t like the way we run our monopoly, stay home.

Nice business model - service with a snarl.

As I mentioned before, your local Craig’s List is often a better alternative to TM — both in terms of price and selection.

Ticketmaster, for blatant douche-baggery, legal parsing, and continued name serializing, you remain On My List.