Cheshire Figment said:
I will disagree with your suggestions for two reasons.
First, and most important I read their privacy policy carefully. They will share "personally identifiably information" with others who will provide information they think you will like. This means they sell or rent their customer list.
Second, magazine subscriptions do not make good gifts unless you know the person really wants a subscription to a particular magazine. I personally subscribe to about 20 publications which I enjoy. I will also from time to time pick up something that looks interesting at a store and then might subscribe if I like it. I have had people give me gift subscriptions to publications which I would throw away. That was both a waste of the giver's money and it also put me on mailing lists for subjects not interesting to me.
So I guess if you don't want
any magazine company collecting your personal data to share with whomever they choose, your best bet is to pay "sticker price" of the magazine and buy it at the cash register. That way the magazine companies will never know your identity and will never get any personal information about you.
If I were to think like you suggest, I would
never subscribe to any magazine because they may sell my personal information to other companies. I like the two magazines I chose and I especially liked the price.
Did you personally check out the magazine company's privacy information for each of the 20 subscriptions to which you presently subscribe? I would think that your personal information is already "out there". If I get additional emails (that may have come from the magazine companies selling my email address), I just delete them or unsubscribe. Yes, it may make extra work on my part, but I'm willing to do it. I have one email address I specifically use for my "junk email" and regularly go throught it and delete most of what arrives in my inbox. Same applies for any junk mail in my postal mailbox. Plus since I used my children's initials ("ABC") for the first name on their magazine subscription, I will know if the name has been sold to other companies when mail starts arriving addressed to the first name "ABC".
I will admit that my suggestion to give magazines as gifts to others may not be a good idea for the reasons you mentioned. One of the magazines I bought is a "gift" to my children, and the other is a "gift" to myself. So if you want to give yourself a magazine gift, this may be a good deal for you.
I will continue to order things from companies on the internet. I check my bank records and, at the moment, I feel confident that none of my financial information is at risk. But I will not let my guard down.
Just think about all the poor veterans out there who had their personal information stolen when the VA employee had his laptop stolen from his home! I don't know if the employee was fired for taking such sensitive information from his workplace (I hope he/she was!), but my point is that no matter how careful you are, some things are out of your control. These veterans may have never touched a computer in their life, or ordered a magazine subscription, and they may have always paid for things in cash, and their personal information was compromised. It's a very fine line. We must remain vigilent.
The above is just my personal opinion.
