Customer List Legislation Summary
The legislation requires the Maryland electric and natural gas utilities to provide retail suppliers with customer lists, enabling retail suppliers to more easily communicate retail offers to customers.
The lists must include the following information: account name, billing and service address, account number, rate class, SOS type, load profile, and 12 months' historical usage. Lists must be provided for all residential, small commercial and medium commercial customers.
Customers must be provided an opportunity to opt out of having their information included on the lists provided to retail suppliers. The Maryland utilities must notify customers through bill inserts that they have 45 days to contact the utility if they do not want to be included on the list. A customer may also contact the utility to have their information removed from the list at any time after having provided their initial approval.
Electric and gas utilities may recover any prudently incurred costs associated with providing customer lists to retail suppliers. Cost recovery will be through a fee on retail suppliers, as determined by the Commission.
Retail suppliers may use the customer lists only to market services related to electricity or natural gas service. They are prohibited from selling or transferring the customer lists to any third party or affiliate. They are permitted to share the information with an authorized agent for the purpose of developing or implementing a marketing campaign; however those authorized agents may not share the list with any other third party or affiliate. The legislation requires the Maryland electric and natural gas utilities to provide retail suppliers with customer lists, enabling retail suppliers to more easily communicate retail offers to customers.
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