Michael Linder

Journalists and bloggers have no privacy rights? Spam pimps Anders Boös and Joe Bernardo think not as they sell your email address to blue chip spammers.

A surge of multinational corporate spam is gushing around the globe, enabled by a firm headquartered in Sweden that sells without permission the identities of 1.1 million journos, bloggers and editors — and there’s no easy exit from their spam lists.

If you blog, Cision may be selling your email address right now — like it or not. The firm conveniently keeps no records indicating how it acquires your identity and in my case, Cision simply lied.

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Spammer Profile | Citibank California
A shameless self-promoter, Citibank California president Rebecca Macieira-Kaufmann breaks federal law with Cision spam that pitches her personal appearances in mass media. There, she hypes stuff like the “Citibank Promise,” a pledge to listen to customer feedback. She refuses to listen to feedback begging her to stop the spam sent with a bogus return address and no opt-out link. 100% illegal.

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Thanks to bald Swedish brainiac Anders Boös and his Chicago-based U.S. henchman Joe Bernardo, corporate PR spam from Sony, 7-11, National Geographic, Cirque du Soleil and more lands in the in-boxes of journalists every hour of every day, slapping a happy face on stupid corporate tricks.

As Toyota tried to deny fatal flaws in its accelerators, the automaker’s Cision-powered spam gushed about flower beds the company planted along Los Angeles freeways.

Cision brags of owning the identities of “one million editors, analysts, freelancers, syndicated columnists, broadcast journalists and bloggers around the world.” You were never asked to be included? Cision shrugs it off. “We are not required to provide an opt-in option to list [sell] your email address,” writes Cision’s Heidi Sullivan.

Blogger Chris Kenton is among thousands who’ve discovered what happens once Cision sinks its fangs. Like Kenton, I was never asked to opt in, but I’ve tried since August to stop Cision from clogging an unpublished email address I use for uploading news reports. I’ve pleaded with Joe Bernardo but it’s easier to shake off the Nigerian bank account scam.

Cision admits that even if it stops selling your identity, its clients may continue to spam. “This is not a practice that we encourage,” Sullivan emails. But do they discourage or prohibit it? Sullivan refuses to provide a Cision spokesperson for a taped interview.

Cision doesn’t actually transmit corporate crapmail. It sells reporters’ identities in pricey products: a “Social Media Dashboard” or a “Premium Data Package.” Cision clients, perhaps unaware these contacts haven’t opted-in, don’t include unsubscribe mechanisms making their promo pitches illegal — each piece subject to fines of up to $16,000 under the Can Spam Act.

Cision calls the process “media intelligence.” We call it harassment. That forgotten newsroom fax machine, spewing reams of never-read media releases? It’s become your email box thanks to Cision.

Ironically, Cision’s Code of Conduct prohibits employees’ personal information and email addresses from being revealed but says nothing about protecting the privacy or identity rights of the journalists Cision targets.

What separates Cision from a Ukrainian porn huckster? Cision’s clients are classier. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for instance. Does Bill — who despises spam — know about this? The Foundation won’t comment. Too embarrassing?

Rather than hijacking an unprotected server, Cision lets others spam with the dirty data it provides. The results are the same. Global corporations become unwitting spam bots. Stamp out one, ten more pop up in its place.

Next time a Cision spammer like Citibank offers its CEO for a radio interview, I’m going to take ‘em up on it, simply to ask why a seemingly respectable corporation relies on a spam enabler to enhance its image. Are you that desperate for good ink?

I’ll post the audio files here.

Meantime, you can help the Federal Trade Commission build a case against Cision and its clients by forwarding their spam to spam@uce.gov. You can also forward it to SpamCop which notifies the sender’s ISP and feeds various IP blacklists.

If any former Cision employees would like to share the firm’s spamming secrets, your anonymity is guaranteed.