These days, I'm smart enough to uncheck the "keep me notified of special offers" check boxes. And when I fill in forms at local retailers, I don't even bother giving them my address or email address. It makes sense. They don't need it except to send me junk mail. But when I was visiting my folks, I helped my parents out by paying for their car repairs. I did nothing but slide my credit card. Apparently that auto shop also read my mailing/billing address from that card because now, 6 months later, I'm getting junk mail from them. If this were online, they would have had a checkbox. But at the register, there are no checkboxes to opt-out of.

Here's one for the business code of ethics: Never save anyone's address (snail mail or email) without giving the individual a chance to opt-out or notification that their address is being saved. It's just wrong to obviously mine the data from somewhere unexpected.

Data mining is OK if done surrepticiously, to aid in business or marketing decisions, and to improve the customer experience. It's not OK to use it to bother your customers, push new products/offers in their faces, or intrude on your customers' privacy unless the customer has had the chance to opt-in/out.

Labels: junk mail, spam