RadioShack Bankruptcy Trustee Wants Customer Mailing Lists Removed From Auction

(Phillip Pessar)

Bankrupt RadioShack doesn’t have a lot of assets left that anyone might want, but one very marketable asset is its mailing lists. Specifically, 65 million names and addresses and 13 million e-mail addresses. In March, RadioShack said that it wouldn’t be selling that information…yet. Now that it’s time to sell off the former company’s intellectual property, all of that contact inforamtion is potentially for sale again.

The Attorney General of Texas and most of his colleagues in other states questioned whether the company even has the right to sell this information according to its own privacy policies. Texas took the lead on this since RadioShack was based in Dallas at the time it declared bankruptcy. The court has appointed a privacy ombudsman who will evaluate these issues, but the bankruptcy trustee argued this week that the sale of customer data (Personally Identifiable Information, or PII, as it’s called in bankruptcy court) may be going forward in a way that doesn’t let the ombudsman have access to the information she needs to report on the planned sale.

The list of the intellectual property for sale and bidding procedures that RadioShack’s attorneys filed doesn’t clearly explain how customer data would be used once it is sold, and doesn’t detail how the sale will work. “The Motion does not provide any detail or information as to what customer data or PII is proposed to be marketed or sold or how many customers may be affected. The Motion and the Bidding Procedures do not require bidders to separately allocate a portion of their bid for the customer data or PII.” Who will be allowed to bid on this information? What are they allowed to do with it? Nobody knows, possibly even including the ombudsman.

The trustee asked the court not to include customers’ personally identifying information in this part of the bankruptcy auction. There will be a hearing on this exact subject on Tuesday, and we’ll learn more then.

Meanwhile, here’s a confidential message for liquidator Hilco Streambank: Consumerist’s offer of ten bucks for the domain name TheShack.com still stands.

OBJECTION OF THE UNITED STATES TRUSTEE TO THE DEBTORS’ COMBINED MOTION FOR ENTRY OF ORDERS: (I) ESTABLISHING BIDDING AND SALE PROCEDURES; (II) APPROVING THE SALE OF CERTAIN IP AND RELATED ASSETS; AND (III) GRANTING RELATED RELIEF [PDF]