Consumer awareness of name removal procedures: Implications for direct marketing

Abstract

Providing consumers an opportunity to remove their names from mailing lists is one method for addressing rising consumer concerns about privacy. Name removal is also central to the success of the industry's self-regulatory programs. However, 52 percent of the public, including 45 percent of those who shop by mail, are not aware of name removal procedures. This study investigates how consumers who are aware of name removal differ from those who are not, based on an analysis of the raw data from the 1991 Harris-Equifax Consumer Privacy Survey (17). Consumers who are unaware of name removal are more likely to be young and to be African-American, and less likely to be well-educated, to have shopped by mail, and are less likely to be concerned about privacy than consumers who are aware.