DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Having a baby has done nothing to cure me of my mail-order lifestyle. In the past two years I’ve used the web to research — and purchase — hundreds of varieties of diapers, strollers, cribs, toys, and, as a new but somewhat aging father, hair-replacement products.

We don’t order from companies that don’t have reasonable privacy policies. And we always opt out of list-sharing and affiliate solicitations at the time of the order.

Nonetheless, recent weeks have brought a spate of unfamiliar catalogs pimping thousands of overwraught, battery-powered kid toys, e.g. the “John Deere® Real Sounds Lawn Mower.” Why? Why? Why?

I always call. I always have my name removed from the mailing list. I always ask where they got my name in the first place — although unfortunately 90% of vendors are unable or unwilling to tell me; customer acquisition generally happens in a dark room staffed by marketing trolls who have had their tongues removed lest they divulge the sekrit source of potential future revenues.

But today, a helpful operator at Sensational Beginnings revealed that they’d purchased my name and address from One Step Ahead, a catalog and website vendor we previously trusted.

The privacy policy at OneStepAhead.com reads:

We use third party companies to help us provide our products and services to you. Some of these companies are given access to some, or all, of the information you provide to us and may use cookies on our behalf. These companies are contractually restricted from using your information in any manner, other than in helping us to provide you with the products and services available on our site. For more information, including how to opt out, please go to: http://www.coremetrics.com/info_eluminate2.html. Occasionally, we allow other carefully screened companies to mail their catalog to our customers’ physical addresses. If you do not wish to be included, please let us know by email at questions@onestepahead.com.

What One Step Ahead doesn’t mention is that these “carefully screened companies” in turn sell OneStepAhead’s customers’ addresses too. This is not a temporary list rental, as the above policy implies.

So, if you’ve purchased something from One Step Ahead, you’ll soon receive a few catalogs from the “carefully screened” companies One Step Ahead sold your address to. Then, a few months later, you’ll receive a few more catalogs from companies who purchased your name from the companies One Step Ahead sold your address to. “And they told two friends, and they told two friends, and they told two friends,” like the old shampoo commercial.

You may not mind the full mailbox, but you might mind the waste: more dead trees, more toxic chemicals from paper bleaching, more heavy metal dyes from printing, more toxic truck exhaust from hauling extra weight to your mailbox, more glossy pages blowing around the local landfill. And for what? So OneStepAhead can make an extra ten cents from your account. Feh.

Here’s a good deed for Earth Day: stop doing business with One Step Ahead.