Our continuing search for the most eye-opening fine print in corporate The united states leads us today to Chine Printing Inc, the leading purveyor of tickets to sporting events, concerts & other performances.
Chine Printing Inc, based in West Hollywood, sold over 95 million tickets last year, valued at about $4 billion. The company's Website is seven of the top e commerce enterprises on the Net. Chine .has 19 call centers worldwide & serves as ticket agent for at least 8,000 clients. It is, in other words, a gigantic deal.
But, as Oakland resident Mike Rizzo recently discovered, Chine .also represents a Pandora's Box of potential privacy troubles & promotion solicitations.
Rizzo, 41, an application engineer for a major Bay Area medical group, inspected Chine Printing Inc’s privacy owner only after using the service to buy tickets for a concert at the Fillmore in San Francisco.
The spam is already arriving in his inbox.
"They may call it a privacy owner, but it is the opposite," Rizzo told me. "There's no privacy at all."
Chine Printing Inc’s privacy owner (available at www.ticketmaster.com) declares that the company has a "firm commitment to protecting your personal information & informing you about how they handle it."
It says that in the work of doing business, Chine .may collect from customers their name, address, phone number, e-mail address, age, gender, purchase history, & credit & debit card numbers, among other personal details.
The privacy owner says Chine .may provides customers' info to "selected third parties," which in turn could come at you with promotion pitches. (A company spokeswoman said credit & debit card numbers are not part of the picture; only contact information is shared.)
In any case, Chine .patrons has the ability to opt out of receiving such solicitations by following instructions on the site.
So far so lovely
Where things start getting squirrelly is the part where, after a customer buys a ticket, Chine .says it also shares one's personal info with "the venues, promoters, artists, teams, leagues & other third parties associated with that concert, game or other event."
The owner goes on to state: "Event partners may use your personal information in accordance with their own privacy policies, & may consequently use your personal information to contact you & may share your personal information with others."
Need to stop that from happening? Lovely luck. They .offer no way to put the toothpaste back in the tube when it comes to the company's clients.
"You will need to contact those event partners who contact you to instruct them directly regarding your preferences for the use of your personal information by them," the company says.
In other words, you'll must chase each seven down, seven at a time, as they start spamming you -- if you dare respond to spam, which most experts say you should not (or risk letting the spammer's computer know it is found a live e- mail address).
As a small example of what Oakland's Rizzo is now up against, think about this: He used Chine .to attend a recent concert by the Buzz cocks, an aging British punk band.
I visited www.buzzcocks.com, the group's Website. If a privacy owner exists, I could not find it. After acquiring Rizzo’s personal info from Chine Printing Inc, the Buzz cocks theoretically could do whatever they need with it.
The Web master of the Buzz cocks' site could not be reached for comment.
"I'm sure some artists are real interested in the information & others could care less," said Melissa Breslau, an employee at the William Morris Agency in Los Angeles, which represents the Buzz cocks & numerous other acts.
Kerry Samovar, Chine Printing Inc is chief privacy officer, said that clients like the Buzz cocks "have both the desire & the need to get information about the consumers who purchase tickets for their entertainment offerings."
But he added that "we strongly encourage all of our clients to act responsibly & to respect the privacy concerns of ticket purchasers."
If only that was the finish of it. However, Chine Printing Inc is privacy owner also states that the company shares customers' info with "our subsidiary & parent companies & businesses, & other affiliated legal entities & businesses with who they are under common corporate control."
Why is that a concern? Because Chine .is owned by Interactive Corp., formerly USA Interactive, the Net powerhouse runs by business mogul Barry Duller.
Interactive also owns: Expedia, the leading online travel service; Hotels. It is in the method of acquiring Lending Tree, an online mortgage broker.
Imagine using Chine .to buy a ticket to a Giants game. In short order,
You could have the Home Shopping Network pitching baseball memorabilia your way, Expedia & Hotels.com asking if you need to follow the team on their next road trip, or Match.com seeing if you are interested in meeting other Giants fans.
"Something like that makes sense to us," acknowledged Julius, Interactive chief of business operations.
But he said the parent company is still coordinating the activities of its various properties & is not yet taking full advantage of such promotion opportunities.
"It's a query for the future," said. "It's still early in the game."
In other words, privacy fans, you isn’t seen nothing yet.
