meta-roj

This site is currently broken

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

your privacy and the ticket master

this nearly escaped my attention with the pile of things to read around here, but wow. you really should read the whole thing. in small chunks, so the legalese doesn’t glaze you over for the rest of the month. emphasis below is mine. this is from the ticketmaster privacy policy.

By purchasing a ticket, or completing a registration form so that you are able to access a purchase page for a ticket, to a concert, game or other event on the Site, you consent (i.e., you opt-in) to us sharing your personal information with the venues, promoters, artists, teams, leagues and other third parties associated with that concert, game or other event (“Event Partners”). We cannot offer you a separate opportunity to opt-out, or not to consent, to our sharing of your personal information with them. Event Partners may use your personal information in accordance with their own privacy policies, and may consequently use your personal information to contact you and may share your personal information with others. 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.

i can only begin to express the level of concerns i have after reading this statement. i’m no lawyer (shoulda…), but this reads to me that if you even THINK seriously about buying a ticket from ticketmaster (“.. completing a registration form so that you are able to access a purchase page”), you’ve pretty much opted into spam, catalogs, fliers, junkmail and just about everything in the world from any company that even remotely does business with ticketmaster or any company that does business with a company that does business with ticketmaster. and if you don’t like it, it’s your responsibility to figure out who ticketmaster gave your data to, and ask them to stop.

do you even get to see if tickets are available without “registering”? i’m not about to register to find out. perhaps one of my good readers is already ‘registered’ and can enlighten me a little…

in the meantime:

If you have any questions or concerns about this privacy policy, the practices of the Site, or your dealings with the Site, you can contact us at legal@ticketmaster.com. You can also send us mail to:

Privacy Officer
Ticketmaster.com, c/o Legal Department
8800 West Sunset Boulevard
West Hollywood, CA 90069

yes. i have concerns. you should have concerns too.

and no, i don’t think i’ll be doing business with ticketmaster anytime soon.

posted by roj at 9:05 am