Contact: Ram Avrahami Address: 1001 N. Randolph/#110 Arlington, VA 22201 Telephone: (703) 908-9125 Facsimile: (703) 908-0186 Email: avrahami@ragis.com COURT RULING HURTS CONSUMERS ARLINGTON, June 14, 1996 -- Judge William T. Newman, Jr. of the Arlington County Circuit Court accepted without comment last Tuesday the position of US News and World Report, Inc. in its legal battle against Ram Avrahami for the unauthorized use of his name as part of a mailing list. Few days later, after answering a clarification request from Avrahami, the Judge signed on the court conclusions of the case, as written and prepared by US News. Avrahami sued US News last summer by claiming that the magazine appropriated his name commercially when it traded it as part of its mailing list without his permission. Avrahami based his case on Virginia statute 8.01-40, usually used by celebrities, that prohibits the misappropriation of one's name for commercial purposes. He detected the misappropriation by intentionally misspelling his name when he subscribed to the magazine, and seeing the same misspelling from several mail solicitations that he received later in his home. In two main lines of argument, the ruling says that Mr. Avrahami does not have property right in different spellings of his name, and that the use of one name in a mailing list is too incidental to be actionable under the Virginia Statute and does not constitute a use for advertising purposes or for purposes of trade. The first argument puts consumers in a catch 22 situation. As was evidenced by court papers, Mr. Avrahami has written in the past to many companies and asked them to reveal where they got his real name, but his question remained unanswered. But when he changed the spelling of his name to detect an unauthorized use, the court says, the changed name is no longer protected. Ironically, US News itself admitted at court that it uses misspelled names of its own employees to detect unauthorized use in the mailing lists that it rents out. The argument that a name is too incidental to a mailing list raises other concerns. It seems that either the court believes that one name has no value, or that the value is too small to be actionable under the statute. US News admitted that it rents its basic subscription list for 8 cents a name (minimum of 10,000 is required) and that the basic list includes names and addresses only (US News also enhances the value of each name by attaching demographic information that it gets from a third source). It is hard to see how one name has no value in a list that is composed only of names and does. It is similar to saying that a one dollar bill has no value when it is in a pack of 10,000 single dollar bills that exchanges hands. It is even more hard to see the court rule that the since the value of the name is too small, its misappropriation is too incidental to be actionable under the statute. This will imply a discrimination between rich and poor that is not democratic and is unsustainable. Since the court has not issued an opinion of its own, it is difficult to interpret exactly what the court had in mind. Some insight may be seen by the arguments proposed by US News that the court did not adopt. The court did not accept the argument that the sale of a mailing lists does not violate people's privacy, the court did not accept that the argument that the sale of a mailing list can not cause harm to the people on the list and the court did not accept the argument that prohibiting the exchange of mailing lists is a violation of the first amendment. Apart from the three above, the court accepted the remaining US News arguments verbatim. Ram Avrahami said that the decision of the court is a disappointment to consumers, since it makes it difficult for each of them to fight for a minor abuse of their rights. Avrahami called consumer organizations to protect the rights of individual consumers in their names. Avrahami also called for the public to express its direct opinion on the issues in his case. He established a new site on the Internet (http://ragis.com/) for the public to vote if they believe their personal information belongs to them or not. The questionnaire is also available by sending a blank email to poll@ragis.com. "US News admitted in court that without asking permission from its subscribers it sells their names, addresses, sex, income, occupation, children age and other demographic information. If the court believes this is too incidental to matter, it is up to consumers to express their disagreement" he said. Avrahami said that he is favorably considering an appeal, but he is not sure how to finance it. "The ruling of the court allows for an appeal on the merit of the law itself, regardless of the issue of misspelling, and would thus be a good protection for all Virginia residents and not just to myself" he said. "I strongly believe that my case and consumers' rights will eventually prevail." Ram Avrahami is represented by Bruce Davis and Patrick Murphy from the Law Offices of Bean, Kinney & Korman in Arlington, VA (telephone 703-525-4000) --- Information about the case may be obtained on the world wide web from the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, DC (http://www.epic.org/privacy/junk_mail/) --- Ram Avrahami's Public Opinion Poll can be reached by sending a blank email to poll@ragis.com or via the world wide web at http://www.ragis.com/ --- Contributions to help defray the legal costs can be sent to the Avrahami Legal Fund, c/o Bean, Kinney & Korman, 2000 North 14th Street, Suite 100, Arlington, VA 22201. Make the checks payable to the Avrahami Legal Fund. Thank you.