Is Intersections a membership marketing company?

In June, Intersections, Inc., which offers IdentityGuard one of the leading identity theft services, acquired a company called Chartered Marketing Services. Chartered is a direct marketing company the specifically focuses on membership clubs and loyalty programs. CMSI’s value-added programs make them look at awful lot like Vertrue (formerly Memberworks) and Trilegiant (part of Cendant), two of the largest membership club companies.

Since Intersections is a major player in the identity theft/consumer credit space, it’s interesting to see them make a move in the direction. Membership programs do love the identity theft space, primarily offering subscription-based credit monitoring (bundled with other stuff). It’s a similar model to their other shopping programs and credit monitoring tends to be “sticky” with customers, so members stay signed up longer than traditional programs (for now, but I think that credit monitoring will soon jump the shark). And membership clubs have no shortage of legal issues and regulatory scrutiny.