Among its data and list hygiene services and products, DMA is introducing two suppression files:  a Recently Recorded Deceased File (RRDF) and a State and Federal Prison File.

“In addition to increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of direct marketing campaigns, DMA’s Preference Services and suppression files are the cornerstone of how we, as direct marketers, demonstrate our commitment to respecting choice and maintaining trust between marketers and consumers,” says Patricia Kachura, DMA’s senior vice president for Ethics and Consumer Affairs.

DMA’s Preference Services allow marketers to remove from their prospect marketing (and donor) lists those consumers who are uninterested in receiving marketing offers from them.  As a condition of membership, DMA members are required to use the Preference Services, which include:

·         Mail Preference Service (MPS).  A residential file of consumers who do not wish to receive promotional mail at home.  The names and addresses of consumers who register with MPS remain on the file for five years or until the consumer moves.  Using MPS can be the single most important contribution your company can make to preserve the information access that is the foundation of successful direct marketing.  Currently, 4.5 million consumers are registered for this service. 

·         E-Mail Preference Service (eMPS).  E-mail addresses from consumers who have registered with the DMA in order to reduce the amount of unsolicited commercial e-mail they receive.  Currently, there are approximately 400,000 consumers registered for this service, with e-mails remaining on the list for five years.

·         Telephone Preference Service (TPS).  DMA is now in the process of phasing out its TPS service, which is a residential file of individuals in the United States who have contacted DMA to stop promotional calls at home.  The last consumer registrants to the list were accepted on October 31, 2006.  However, those numbers must continue to be scrubbed from call lists through October 31, 2011.  Also, TPS will remain active in three states where it functions as the as the official state do-not-call list (Pennsylvania, Maine, and Wyoming).

·         Foreign Mail Preference Service.  This file contains names and addresses of consumers from the UK, Belgium or Germany who do not wish to receive promotional mail at home.  Individuals register by sending their name and home address to the appropriate consumer organization in their country, which then shares this information with DMA.

·         Deceased Do Not Contact (DDNC) List.  Established in 2005 as a service to family members, friends, or caregivers, the service helps reduce the amount of commercial solicitations (in any media) that are addressed to deceased individuals.  Contact information provided from family members, friends, or caregivers is added into the other preference services for suppression (and kept permanently).  There is also a stand-alone file available for the convenience of marketers.  (Members are not required to use the stand-alone file as long as they use the other preference services when prospecting.)

In addition to its Preference Services, DMA also maintains a variety of suppression files for use by marketers.  These are not driven by consumer registration, nor is their use mandatory for DMA members.  Rather, they are intended to help marketers conduct effective list hygiene and remain in compliance with some of the state and federal laws that govern direct marketing practices.  These suppression files include:

·         Wireless Ported Numbers File.  This file identifies approximately 1.6 million ported numbers, including numbers that appear to belong to wired land lines but are now assigned to wireless telephones, as well as numbers that appear to belong to wireless telephones but are now assigned to wired land lines.  The file is updated daily and is intended to assist marketers in complying with federal law and DMA guidelines.  Federal law and DMA guidelines prohibit marketers from calling wireless devices without prior express permission.

·         Wireless Block Identifier.  This file identifies more than 475 million phone numbers that are currently, or will be, assigned to cell phones.  The file is updated monthly and is intended to help marketers comply with federal law and DMA guidelines.  Federal law and DMA guidelines prohibit marketers from calling wireless devices without prior express permission.

·         Recently Recorded Deceased File (RRDF).  While the Deceased Do Not Contact preference service is comprised of information that is provided directly from family members, friends, and caregivers, the RRDF, which launches this month, is constructed from various other sources.  It contains 4.6 million recorded deaths for the past 12 months (and includes the DDNC). 

·         State and Federal Prison File.  This new suppression file, created at the request of DMA members, consists of approximately 2,000 addresses of federal and state prisons and correctional facilities.  It is available to companies for the sole purpose of removing names and addresses from their marketing lists, but is not intended to be a record of all prison facilities.

·         EasyComply.  This is a service to help marketers manage state do-not-call (DNC) lists and stay in compliance.  The program allows marketers to compile their own easy-to-manage database of any or all of the various state DNC lists, plus two in-house suppression lists, DMA’s Wireless Block Identifier file, and the Federal Trade Commission’s National Do Not Call Registry.

DMA’s preference services and suppression files are maintained by Interactive Marketing Solutions (IMS), a DMA partner company.  Additional information is available online at http://preference.the-dma.org/.

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