Publishers Clearing House Sells Customers' Personal Purchase Data: Class Action

Publishers Clearing House (PCH) sells customers’ private purchase information without providing prior notice of the disclosures, in violation of Utah’s Notice of Intent to Sell Nonpublic Personal Information Act (NISNPIA), alleged a class action Friday (docket 4:23-cv-00118) in U.S. District Court for Utah in St. George.

Plaintiff James Camoras, a resident of St. George, bought a tripod and a book from PCH in December 2022 and February 2023, said the complaint. PCH didn’t notify Camoras that it discloses customers' private purchase information, and Camoras never authorized it to do so. Camoras also wasn’t informed that PCH “rents, sells, or otherwise discloses for compensation” customers’ purchase information, “or any means of opting out,” it said.

Since Camoras made his purchases through PCH, the clearing house disclosed without notice Camoras’ private purchase information to “data aggregators, data appenders, and/or data cooperatives, who then supplemented that information with data from their own files,” the complaint said. PCH also rented, sold or disclosed compensation lists with Camoras’ private purchase information to third parties seeking to contact PCH customers for their own business purposes, without prior notice, it said.

The complaint documented a screenshot from PCH's list broker NextMark, offering to provide renters access to the mailing list titled “Publishers Clearing House Buyers Masterfile Mailing List,” which contains the private purchase Information of all 2.1 million recent U.S. purchasers at a base price of “$100.00/M [per thousand],” or 10 cents apiece.

Under NISNPIA, a commercial entity can't disclose nonpublic personal information that it obtained on or after Jan. 1, 2004, as a result of a consumer transaction in Utah, such as disposition of goods, without giving notice, said the complaint. The notice should read “substantially as follows: 'We may choose to disclose nonpublic personal information about you, the consumer, to a third party for compensation,’” the complaint said. The notice should be “written in dark bold” and “sufficiently conspicuous so that a reasonable person would perceive the notice before providing the nonpublic personal information,” it said.

Data aggregation is “especially troublesome” when consumer information is sold to direct-mail advertisers, who “often use consumer information to lure unsuspecting consumers into various scams, including fraudulent sweepstakes, charities, and buying clubs,” the complaint said. When companies share information with data aggregators, data cooperatives and direct-mail advertisers, they contribute to vast databases of consumer data that are often “sold to thieves by large publicly traded companies,” which “put[s] almost anyone within the reach of fraudulent telemarketers” and other criminals, it said, citing a New York Times 2007 article.

The plaintiff seeks an award of $500 for himself and each class member for each time PCH failed to provide notice required under NISNPIA related to their private purchase information, plus prejudgment interest and reasonable attorneys’ fees and legal costs, the complaint said. PCH didn't comment Monday.