Dear Editor:
Last night when I went to sleep I felt secure in the knowledge that I was living in the United States; “land of the free …” This morning when I read my mail, I began to wonder whether I was still in the USA.
Included with the usual mail was a certified letter from Motorola, addressed to “Dealership Principal/Owner.” The letter informed me that an “equipment account hold” would be placed on our account because we failed to provide Motorola with “valid end-use customer sales information.”
This culminates a difference of opinion between our company and Motorola regarding the sanctity of our customer list, and our desire to not share the contents of that list.
Motorola says that we must provide them with information pertaining to the disposition of all radio equipment products that we purchase from Motorola. With respect to sales of product to end users, Motorola requires the name, address, phone number and industry classification of each purchaser.
But it doesn’t stop there; we must also indicate the model number and serial number of each product sold, as well as the selling price.
Motorola claims that all of this information is required to allow them to help us sell more radios, and to notify end users in case of product recalls, etc.
When I told Motorola that we would be willing to supply marketing information such as industry classification, zip codes, quantities and models that we sold, they told us that wasn’t good enough.
I informed Motorola that our customers are not interested in letting Motorola know what they are buying, what they are paying, where they are located and how they can be reached. I told Motorola that we could inform all of our customers that might be affected by any product recalls. We would also be willing to participate in marketing programs that would allow us to target our own customers.
Our company has been in the two-way radio business for 30 years. We enjoy particularly shining relationships with both vendors and customers alike. We were among the first to become dealers when Motorola began its indirect marketing program.
Nevertheless, Motorola has made it known that it would prefer to terminate our company as a dealer, rather than let us continue to do business as usual.
Recently, I read an article concerning an Internet advertising broker that is in the business of collecting data on the browsing habits of Internet surfers who visit various Web sites. This information is then sold to the company’s clients. The clients then use the information to provide a more personal browsing experience (usually in the form of various advertisements that would pop up on an individual’s computer monitor) to Web site visitors. I should emphasize that at this point, the advertising broker only knew the browsing habits of anonymous Internet surfers.
Last year, the Internet advertising broker acquired another company. The new company owned databases that contained demographic information about millions of consumers. This information consists of actual names and addresses of people who, perhaps, subscribe to magazines; maybe they are people who filled out warranty cards for products they purchased. In any event, these are real names of real people. Well, the Internet advertising broker came up with a bright idea. By matching the online habit information that they already had with the demographic information, anonymous Internet surfers would now be known personally. The broker would then have even more detailed customer information for its clients.
There was only one problem … The Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general in New York and Michigan looked into the matter. The FTC and government lawyers are concerned that the Internet advertising broker has been less-than-forthcoming about how it intended to use this information. Even more troubling was the fact that consumers weren’t given much of a chance to opt out of being part of those profiles. Seems that there are laws on the books which seek to protect our rights to privacy.
Can we draw a parallel between the story I just related and Motorola? Shouldn’t our customers have the right to “opt out” of having specific information transmitted to a third party?
Unless other dealers wake up and question the direction in which Motorola is headed with regard to end-user buying habits, they may discover that, one day, Motorola will be selling directly to those dealers’ customers.
Dealers have always had a choice regarding products that they sell. We can certainly offer our customers the opportunity to purchase comparable products from “less nosey” manufacturers. Given the choice between having detailed purchasing information relayed to a manufacturer, or having their buying habits remain confidential, I think most customers would choose the latter option.
Jules K. Neuringer
President,
Portronix Communications Inc.
Brooklyn, NY 11214
