Cox Marketing Dept. Gives DoubleClick Your Private Account Information...

Received a spam today entitled "Cox Communications E-Newsletter".
I have asked Cox to not include me in any of their mailings (read opted
out).
Being suspicious that this was a scam I ran the headers through SpamCop, lo
and behold it was from DoubleClick, the bastids!
Called Cox and after over an hour of being passed around I finally get
confirmation that Cox is using DoubleClick for their mass mailings and has
given them my private account information and in spite of me opting out.
Is this legal?

~cat~

 

I cannot answer to the legality but it is definitely a major blunder on their part. However, a good number of e-Commerce sites that have Double-Click arrange the ads feed off the email address of registered frequenters of the site to Double-Click. I think, though, that this normally happens when you register on the site to get your "personalized" page (an ironic use of the term, you must admit).

Regards,

Dan

 

This is a case of the fox guarding the hens, my private information (read parent account) handed over to DoubleClick!
This is incredible.

 

Yeah, when I first read about this I was shocked as well. I think if more people knew of it there might be sufficient impetus to prompt legislation to counter it but as it is <shrug>