The companies that fill your mailboxes with advertisements know everything about you. They know what car you drive, what you look like, when you were born, where you live, and even the quality of your eyesight.
And it might surprise you where they buy some of this information -- from the state of Missouri.
More than three-hundred companies, ranging from banks and insurance agents to direct mail companies and non-profit groups, pay the state a combined 1.2 million dollars each year.
Now, a state representative from California, Missouri has proposed legislation to stop companies from using drivers' personal information for marketing, surveying or bulk mailing. State Senator Larry Rohrbach says, "The government shouldn't be in the junk mail business."
Direct mail companies can obtain everyone's data from the state of Missouri's drivers' license and vehicle registration records. Everything on those records is available to anyone willing to pay the price.
But direct mail companies are concerned that they will lose valuable data that goes into making their databases. Currently just under half of the states have laws restricting use of motor vehicle data.
One of the nation's largest list sellers, Polk company, sells the data to car companies and dealerships that want to send direct mail advertising to consumers with a specific profile. Polk obtains information from a variety of sources of public information and sells it to businesses for market research and advertising.
Polk's director of public relations says that half of the company's business comes from selling marketing information to the automotive industry. Jim Miller explains, "Say you're a [auto] parts store and you come to us and say, 'In a ten mile radius of my auto parts store, I'm curious as to what the majority of types of cars are out there. So based on registration data that we have purchased from each of the states, we can give you a good feel if it's imports or domestics."
Miller says the company would still buy the data to sell it to car manufacturers to announce safety recalls.
Action Lists' president Lori Feldman doesn't think the term "junk mail" really applies to most of the direct mail industry. Feldman says, "It really is a love-hate relationship. People say that they hate it but then they don't want to give up their catalogs or their special coupons for their favorite restaurants."
The Saint Louis-based company illustrated one direct mail campaign that relies upon data solely from the license database. Feldman says, "If you're an optometrist, ophthalmology, optician, and you're looking to sell more glasses, are you going to go to someone with twenty-twenty eyesight -- or someone who's already got problems with their eyes?"
Feldman says that having access to motor vehicle databases actually helps alleviate the amount of unwanted mail by only mailing it to people who meet a specified criteria.
The former president of the Rocky Mountain Direct Marketing Association says, "This trend has been going on for the twenty years since I've been in the business." Jim Morris added, "I think twenty years ago there were only four or five states that didn't allow it. More states aren't allowing it anymore for a variety of reasons."
Morris says that Colorado doesn't allow companies access to the personal data from the drivers' license records – just information about the vehicle and the owner's address.
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[Missouri Digital News is produced by the State Government Reporting Program of the Missouri School of Journalism (home of the The Journalist's Creed) with support from the Missouri Press Association, the Missouri Broadcasters' Association, KMOX Radio in St. Louis and KSMU Radio in Springfield.
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