I researched the executive vice president responsible for marketing at Alaska Airlines, and sent him the following letter:

Dear Gregg,

According to your latest Mileage Plan newsletter, you "value (my) privacy and work to protect the personal information I share" with Alaska Airlines. However, selling my information so that I can be further bombarded with marketing come-ons seems like a really strange way of demonstrating your commitment. Unfortunately, this is apparently what you intend to do unless I specifically "opt out" of the madness.

I will give Alaska Airlines the benefit of the doubt and assume that you're just practicing marketing rather than doublespeak (the end result is the same, but one is consciously malicious while the other achieves malice through hot air and creative interpretations of reality). Nevertheless, I think that you'd do a much better job of protecting my privacy by not "sharing" it with anyone else. Or, for that matter, selling it. Better yet, allow me to "opt in" if I want to receive "information about products and services that may interest" me.

I'm [my name]. My address is [street address]. My mileage plan account number is [eight digits]. And you can keep all of the above information to yourselves, if you please.

Very truly yours

spam [AT] tprophet [DOT] org (I provide this address to companies I don't trust--welcome to the club)

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