United Airlines sells lists to spammers
Jan 30, 2004
I noticed an uptick in spam over the past four days. Curiously, all of itnwas destined for an email account I use only with United Airlines. Reviewing my logs and email, junk started trickling in on October 4th but I didn’t notice thanks to my filters. I remember setting my "Mileage Plus" profile to not send solicitations and offers when I created the account in June. That choice has been unset but not by me. United Airlines seems to violate its own privacy policy. See this passage currently in the privacy policy:
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On occasion, we may provide customer mailing listnand email addresses to reputable, carefully-screened nMileage Plus partners or companies whose services nor products may be of interest to you. (You may nunsubscribe by Opting-Out.) Sharing of customer listsnmay also provide you with the opportunity to earn nbonus miles for non-flight activity. We require strictncontractual obligations from these third parties tonensure safeguards for the privacy and security of theninformation.
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Opting out obviously isn’t enough. Then there is the matter of the carefully-screened Mileage Plus partners whoninclude the sorts of people who sell "Viagra",n"Propecia", "Vicodin" and something named "Cialis". These strict contractual obligations that United Airlines requires of it’s partners also allows for marketing even more dubious products like "Mini Keychain breathalyzer", "Digital Cable Descrambler" and "Diploma in 1 Week".
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It’s clear that United Airlines associates with a nice bunch of liars, cheats and thieves.