While info-tech privacy is really important, I’m glad William addressed an old-skool privacy issue. (As a fellow Canadian, I like the “Canadian Content’ LOL) The business practice of harvesting, selling and buying mailing address has been around for decades. It can’t be stopped. We can un-pack a lot of William’s article and the link he referenced.
To quote from the link
“The case began when a man received marketing material from a Toronto restaurant with his name and full apartment address on the envelope, including the suite number. “ We can infer from this that the complaintant's apartment has numbered mailboxes (different from the apartment numbers). He is surprised and unhappy that the physical address, including his apartment number, is now in the public domain. How did it get there?
Was it his landlord? Was it the electricity utility? Was it the government? Was it a ‘data thief’ at one of these organizations? If you use an alias name with any of these examples, you have committed fraud. Conversely, if they turn around and sell your private information, there are no negative consequences.
The link begins by stating “… Canada Post is breaking the law by gleaning information from the outsides of envelopes and packages to help build marketing lists that it RENTS to businesses.” (It does not RENT. It SELLS this information and buyers can RE-SELL.)
The link goes on to state;
“Canada Post says it can prepare marketing lists based on 1,200 available targeting attributes such as marital and family status, ethnicity, interests and hobbies. “ They glean all that “information from the outsides of envelopes and packages”? REALLY?! Where does Canada Post really get this personal information from? As a crown corporation, do they share this data with the federal government (who owns them)?
A few years ago, the Canadian government attempted to crack-down on unwanted telephone solicitation by creating a national “do not call” list of people who explicitly opted-in to this list. Telemarketers downloaded this list and started calling! Canada Post would love if people attempted to unsubscribe from this database as such victims would be validating their information making it more valuable to sell!
My solution
I live in the country and have a mailbox at the end of my laneway. I advised Canada Post to de-commision my address. That is, postal mail coming to my address is return as “address is undeliverable”. My Canada Post post office (PO) box is my address. This PO Box is in the closest city to me that happens to be in another county. (The Canada Post franchises within other stores (i.e. Shopper’s Drug Mart) are more ‘informal’ than the actual Post Offices.) There are ways of obfuscating this address so it appears to be a physical address. When you take out a PO box in Canada, you can state several names who will be using this address. You COULD list some alias names. I use one alias name that is an informal agreement with the PO franchisee. Thus, there is nothing in writing tying me to my alias.
I am in my second year of having mail from my old physical address forwarded to my PO box by Canada Post. I have a bank MasterCard that uses this address to mail my statement to. The credit card companies do send updates to credit bureaus. My main bank has my PO Box in another city. Thus, misinformation is conveyed by having this old address still able to receive communications.
While info-tech privacy is really important, I’m glad William addressed an old-skool privacy issue. (As a fellow Canadian, I like the “Canadian Content’ LOL) The business practice of harvesting, selling and buying mailing address has been around for decades. It can’t be stopped. We can un-pack a lot of William’s article and the link he referenced.
To quote from the link
“The case began when a man received marketing material from a Toronto restaurant with his name and full apartment address on the envelope, including the suite number. “ We can infer from this that the complaintant's apartment has numbered mailboxes (different from the apartment numbers). He is surprised and unhappy that the physical address, including his apartment number, is now in the public domain. How did it get there?
Was it his landlord? Was it the electricity utility? Was it the government? Was it a ‘data thief’ at one of these organizations? If you use an alias name with any of these examples, you have committed fraud. Conversely, if they turn around and sell your private information, there are no negative consequences.
The link begins by stating “… Canada Post is breaking the law by gleaning information from the outsides of envelopes and packages to help build marketing lists that it RENTS to businesses.” (It does not RENT. It SELLS this information and buyers can RE-SELL.)
The link goes on to state;
“Canada Post says it can prepare marketing lists based on 1,200 available targeting attributes such as marital and family status, ethnicity, interests and hobbies. “ They glean all that “information from the outsides of envelopes and packages”? REALLY?! Where does Canada Post really get this personal information from? As a crown corporation, do they share this data with the federal government (who owns them)?
A few years ago, the Canadian government attempted to crack-down on unwanted telephone solicitation by creating a national “do not call” list of people who explicitly opted-in to this list. Telemarketers downloaded this list and started calling! Canada Post would love if people attempted to unsubscribe from this database as such victims would be validating their information making it more valuable to sell!
My solution
I live in the country and have a mailbox at the end of my laneway. I advised Canada Post to de-commision my address. That is, postal mail coming to my address is return as “address is undeliverable”. My Canada Post post office (PO) box is my address. This PO Box is in the closest city to me that happens to be in another county. (The Canada Post franchises within other stores (i.e. Shopper’s Drug Mart) are more ‘informal’ than the actual Post Offices.) There are ways of obfuscating this address so it appears to be a physical address. When you take out a PO box in Canada, you can state several names who will be using this address. You COULD list some alias names. I use one alias name that is an informal agreement with the PO franchisee. Thus, there is nothing in writing tying me to my alias.
I am in my second year of having mail from my old physical address forwarded to my PO box by Canada Post. I have a bank MasterCard that uses this address to mail my statement to. The credit card companies do send updates to credit bureaus. My main bank has my PO Box in another city. Thus, misinformation is conveyed by having this old address still able to receive communications.