The publisher of many of America’s most popular magazines has been hit with a class action lawsuit, accusing the magazine seller of violating the privacy rights of its Illinois subscribers by selling its mailing lists to anyone willing to pay as little as 11.5 cents per name.
On Aug. 24, attorney J. Dominick Larry, of Nick Larry Law, of Chicago, and attorneys with the firm of Hedin Hall, of Miami, filed a complaint in Chicago federal court against Des Moines, Iowa-based Meredith Corporation.
Meredith publishes a host of magazines, including Better Homes and Gardens, People, Entertainment Weekly, Midwest Living, Shape, Travel + Leisure, InStyle and more.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of named plaintiff Diana Duda, of suburban Glenwood.
According to the complaint, Duda had subscribed to receive InStyle magazine.
The complaint centers on Meredith’s alleged practice of selling its mailing lists to a host of buyers. These, the complaint said, included “data miners, data aggregators, data appenders, data cooperatives, list brokers, aggressive marketing companies, political organizations, non-profit companies and various other parties.”
However, the complaint said, Meredith allegedly offered its subscriber databases for sale “the community at large” with no limitations on who was buying and for what purposes.
“… Indeed Defendant (Meredith) sold these lists to any member of the public willing to pay for them,” the complaint said.
According to the complaint, the data sold included subscribers’ full names, home addresses and “myriad other personally identifying attributes and demographic information such as gender, age and income.”
The complaint alleged the information was sold “at a base price of $115 per thousand,” or 11.5 cents each.
The lawsuit alleged such sales violated the Illinois Right to Publicity Act. The complaint cited a provision in the IRPA law which forbids people and businesses from using “an individual’s identity for commercial purposes during the individual’s lifetime without having obtained previous written consent from the appropriate person … or their authorized representative.”
The complaint said protected identities under the law are defined to include “an attribute of an individual that serves to identify the individual to an ordinary, reasonable viewer, … but not limited to name, signature, photograph, image, likeness or voice.”
“… By offering to sell to the community at large and by selling, on the market to the general public, mailing lists that identify, by name and other personally identifying attributes, each of the Illinois residents … to whom it sold a subscription to a particular magazine, without any of these individuals’ consent (written or otherwise), Meredith directly violated the IRPA,” the plaintiffs alleged.
The plaintiffs seek to expand their action to include any Illinois resident whose name appeared on one of the mailing lists Meredith allegedly “sold or offered for sale.”
The complaint seeks damages of $1,000 per class member, plus attorney fees. The complaint also requests a court order requiring Meredith to obtain written consent from customers in Illinois before allegedly selling their names and other identifying information on mailing lists.