Industry Eye Letter: How DMA Can Contain Catalog Backlash

The DMA needs to take a stronger position to make service bureaus and their members use the MPS suppression file. For consumers who don't want mail, Catalog Choice should direct those individuals to the MPS to have their names suppressed from other lists.

Many names Catalog Choice sends to catalog companies come from outside rented lists. For example, out of approximately 1,600 names sent to one firm, fewer than 100 matched on the housefile. Therefore, the cataloger has to maintain its own mail suppression file to run against every merge in addition to using the DMA's MPS file. It would make more sense for Catalog Choice to maintain a master file, similar to the DMA's MPS suppression file.