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Massachusetts High Court Decision on ZIP Codes Increases Legal Risk for Retailers
By Douglas H. Meal, David T. Cohen, and Lisa L. Rachlin, Ropes & Gray LLP
Retailers, like all businesses, constantly seek to learn more about their customers in order to serve them better. In Tyler v. Michaels Stores, however, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recently ruled that a simple step taken by many retailers to help achieve this goal – collecting the ZIP codes of their customers at the point of sale – can in some circumstances violate Massachusetts’ consumer protection statute.
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Von Maur's March
Von Maur got its start like many of its department store peers: An immigrant with an American dream opened a downtown store, customers came, they shopped, the brand took hold and took off.
In the case of the midwestern upscale department store banner Von Maur, the dreamer was German immigrant J.H.C. Petersen, who opened a downtown storefront in Davenport, Iowa, in 1872. He and his sons grew the business and sold it nearly a half-century later to a partnership that included two Austrian brothers -- C.J. and Cable von Maur, whose family gained full ownership by 1937.
