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A class action lawsuit against the Smithsonian Institution asserts that the company unlawful sells Smithsonian magazine subscriber information to third parties.
The Smithsonian class action lawsuit was filed by Artie Dale Phillips who says he’s been a subscriber to Smithsonian magazine for around the last decade.
He claims that Smithsonian did not notify him prior or at the time when he subscribed to the magazine that the company made a practice of selling subscriber information to third parties.
Allegedly, the company did this nonetheless, profiting from the sale and injuring subscribers in the process.
The Smithsonian class action lawsuit argues that the company made a practice of disclosing the personal reading information of Phillips and other subscribers to third parties between June 24, 2016 and July 30, 2016.
Allegedly, the information was sold to data aggregators, data appenders, and/or data cooperatives who then supplemented that information with data from their own files. Additionally the company reportedly sold the information to advertisers who wanted to contact Smithsonian subscribers.
The Smithsonian magazine class action lawsuit goes on to argue that because Smithsonian sold his information, Phillips received junk mail from various organizations. Phillips says this junk mail wastes his time, money, and resources.
The Smithsonian magazine class action lawsuit goes on to say that Phillips and other consumers are entitled to privacy of their personal reading information because Michigan law guarantees this privacy, and because the customers paid money for their subscription.
The Smithsonian class action lawsuit notes that in 1988, members of the United States Senate determined that personal reading information offers “a window into our loves, likes, and dislikes,” so “the trail of information generated by every transaction that is now recorded and stored in sophisticated record-keeping systems is a new, more subtle and pervasive form of surveillance,” asserting that personal reading information is a privacy issue.
The Smithsonian subscription class action lawsuit asserts that privacy is one of the benefits of the purchase of a subscription to the magazine, and Phillips and the other readers were denied the full set of benefits of their purchase because their privacy was violated.
Allegedly, had Phillips known that his privacy would be violated, he would not have purchased a subscription to the Smithsonian magazine or would not have paid as much as he did for it. He says that many other customers were similarly misled and similarly injured. He seeks damages on behalf of himself and all other similarly affected consumers.
Phillips is represented by Joseph I. Marchese and Philip L. Fraietta of Bursor & Fisher PA, Frank S. Hedin and David W. Hall of Hedin Hall LLP, and Nick Suciu III of Barbat Mansour & Suciu PLLC.
The Smithsonian Magazine Subscriber Info Sale Class Action Lawsuit is Artie Dale Phillips v. Smithsonian Institution, Case No. 2:19-cv-11852-AJT-RSW, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
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