Avis Tries Harder to Spam You

When you do business with a company, how long does it then get to use the information it learns about you? And if you ask them to please not send you e-mail, how often can they send you e-mail to see if you’ve changed your mind? Those are some of the questions one reader was asking recently after receiving some unwanted attention from Avis.

The reader is a long-time correspondent of mine who is quite meticulous about opting out from all e-mail marketing lists. “I rented a car from Avis a few years ago through the web, so they had my e-mail address and other personal information,” the reader says. “But as usual I made sure that I was not going to be on any mailing list.”

Of course, companies have a tendency to forget over time that you’ve opted out from receiving their e-mail promotions, so the reader wasn’t all that surprised when he received an “Avis Requests Your Permission” message recently. But, to encourage him to receive e-mail promotions from Avis in the future, the message provided him a link to a somewhat disturbing online profile of personal information collected about him from the rental. What really bugged the reader, however, was a postscript at the end of the e-mail:

“We recognize that you have unsubscribed from receiving promotional e-mails from Avis. This is being sent as a one-time message to reconfirm your e-mail preference. This is not a promotional offer. If you do not respond, we will assume you want to maintain your unsubscribed status.”

In other words, Avis was quite aware that he had opted out from their marketing lists but had decided to try to get him to change his mind by sending him an unsolicited e-mail. How often and for how many years into the future can Avis do that, based on his one transaction with them? How long can they keep the reader’s profile online, putting at risk far more personal information than just his e-mail address? Is what Avis doing even legal?

I don’t know about other countries, but it would appear that here in the U.S. Avis is on solid legal ground. Remember, we have the world’s weakest anti-spam law — the “Yes, You Can Spam Act,” as I’ve always liked to call it. Under that, even the sleaziest little spam outfits have the right to spam you once, and it’s your obligation to opt out from receiving more of their junk. (Which of course you wouldn’t really want to try to do because following their opt-out procedures could put you at risk for viruses and spyware.) But even when you do opt out, as the reader did with Avis, there are innumerable loopholes in the law for any company with which you’ve actually done business. Avis could probably send him e-mail for all eternity, asking him to change his mind, without violating the Can Spam Act.

What about our privacy laws? Unfortunately, as we’ve also long discussed, they aren’t much stronger. Avis does have a few limitations on what it can do with his credit card information, but it pretty much has carte blanche otherwise if it doesn’t violate the terms of its own privacy policy. And the privacy policy cited by Avis in its e-mail makes it clear that the whole “purpose of this Privacy Policy is to tell you how Avis strives to better serve you by keeping you informed of promotions, products and services …” and that Avis “may also disclose your information to our affiliates and non-affiliated business partners for their use both on our behalf and for their own business purposes.” While the policy provides for opting out of such use including Avis e-mail campaigns, opting out “shall not preclude us from corresponding with you, by e-mail or otherwise, regarding your relationship with us.” So theoretically, Avis can send you e-mail hourly asking if you’d like to change your relationship with them and opt in.

Just as a sidelight, we don’t know if this privacy policy is the one that was in effect when the reader rented his car, but it doesn’t really matter. That’s because, like many other companies, Avis has a sneakwrap clause saying they can change the terms by posting the new policy on their website whenever they like and that they therefore “encourage you to periodically review this Privacy Policy in order to keep apprised of minor changes and of our current privacy practices.”

There’s not much for the reader to do about this except make sure the next car he rents isn’t from Avis. “It’s bad enough that companies don’t give you the option to opt out until their first spam, but here we have a company that knows I’ve opted out that sends spam anyway. How scummy can you get?”

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