Breach filing
ArchivedMerkle Direct Marketing: 15,000 individuals, Jan 2010.
Merkle Direct Marketing reported a breach of unsecured protected health information to the HHS Office for Civil Rights on 11 January 2010. The filing records the organisation as a business associate in Maryland and lists 15,000 individuals affected, which makes it the 52nd largest of the 170 Maryland filings on the register and the 32nd largest of the 199 filings submitted nationally in 2010. Among the 4 Maryland filings made in 2010 it ranks 1st.
Individuals affected
15,000
As reported to HHS
Modelled cost (IBM 2025)
$2.40M
Method shown, not disclosed
Rank in MD
52nd
of 170 Maryland filings
Rank in 2010
32nd
of 199 filings nationally
Section F.1 / The filing
As posted by HHS OCR
Every value below is the portal's own field for this filing, plus its rank within the register.
- Covered entity type
- Business Associate
- Individuals affected
- 15,000
- Breach submission date
- 11 January 2010
- Submission year
- 2010
- Type of breach
- Theft
- Location of breached information
- Paper/Films
- Business associate present
- Yes
- State
- Maryland (MD)
- Portal status
- listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive
- Rank in Maryland by size
- 52nd of 170
- Rank in 2010 nationally
- 32nd of 199
- Maryland median filing
- 4,792 individuals
- Register id (derived)
- MD-20100111-merkle-direct-marketing
Section F.2 / In context
Where this filing sits in Maryland and in 2010
OCR classifies the incident as theft, with the breached information held in paper records or films. Theft is the type recorded on 15 of the 170 Maryland filings (9%) and on 68% of all filings submitted in 2010. Paper/Films appears on 9% of Maryland filings.
A business associate is recorded as present on the filing, as it is on 38% of Maryland filings. At 15,000 individuals the breach is 3.1 times the Maryland median filing of 4,792 and 3.8 times the national median of 4,000 across all 7,884 filings. It sits in the 10,000 to 99,999 band, which holds 1,938 filings.
As of 28 August 2026 the case is listed in the HHS OCR breach portal archive. OCR's closing summary of the case is reproduced in full below.
Maryland's breach notification statute (Md. Code, Com. Law 14-3504) requires notice to affected residents within 45 days after discovery or notification of the breach. Its attorney general threshold: all breaches (AG notified before individual notices are sent). The HIPAA Breach Notification Rule ran alongside it: notice to affected individuals and to HHS without unreasonable delay and no later than 60 days after discovery, which is the clock that put this filing on the portal.
Multiplying 15,000 individuals by IBM's $160 customer-PII cost per record (Cost of a Data Breach 2025, the figure the site's calculator uses) gives a modelled $2.40M; the 2026 edition's $192 gives $2.88M. Both are modelled estimates with the method shown, not costs disclosed by Merkle Direct Marketing. For scale, IBM's 2026 average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M, so this filing models at 0.4 times the sector average.
Section F.3 / OCR closing summary
The portal's archived description, in full
Written by the Office for Civil Rights when the case was closed and reproduced verbatim from the HHS export.
The covered entity's (CE) business associate (BA) mailed protected health information (PHI) of approximately 15,000 individuals to incorrect addresses due to an error in its quarterly address update process. The mailing contained demographic information, explanations of benefits, clinical information, and diagnoses. Upon discovery of the breach, the CE collected the returned mail and verified that it had not been delivered, and updated its HIPAA policies and procedures. Following OCR's investigation, the CE was able to recover all or nearly all of the misdirected envelopes.
Section F.5 / Modelled cost
15,000 individuals through IBM's per-record figures
Modelled cost / method shown, not a disclosed cost
ModelledIBM 2025 customer PII, $160 per record
$2.40M
15,000 x $160
IBM 2026 customer PII, $192 per record
$2.88M
15,000 x $192
Method: individuals affected, as reported by Merkle Direct Marketing to HHS, multiplied by IBM's customer-PII cost per record (Cost of a Data Breach 2025 Figure 6 and the 2026 edition). No cost has been disclosed by the entity for this filing; the figure is a planning estimate, not a fact about the breach. IBM's per-record figures come from mid-volume breaches and IBM cautions against applying them to breaches involving millions of records; the site's per-record page explains where the multiplication holds and where it breaks down.
Context: IBM's average cost of a healthcare breach is $6.64M in the 2026 report ($7.42M in 2025); the global average across all sectors was $4.44M in 2025.
Cost per record: method and limits / Healthcare breach cost, IBM 2026
Section F.6 / Notification clock
Maryland statute and the HIPAA rule
State notification statute
Maryland: Md. Code, Com. Law 14-3504
- Notice to individuals
- Within 45 days after discovery or notification of the breach
- Attorney general threshold
- All breaches (AG notified before individual notices are sent) (Before individual notifications are sent)
- Private right of action
- No: No PROA under the breach statute; AG enforcement only
- Penalty
- Unfair or deceptive trade practice; up to $10,000 per violation, $25,000 per repeat violation
The HIPAA Breach Notification Rule runs alongside the state statute: notice to affected individuals and to HHS without unreasonable delay and no later than 60 days after discovery.
Section F.7 / Peer filings
Maryland filings closest in size
Neighbours by size rank among Maryland filings in 2010, topped up from other years where 2010 has too few. Filings of 10,000 or more link to their own page.
| Covered entity | Type | Individuals | Submitted | Breach type | Location | BA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Takai, Hoover, and Hsu, P.A. | Healthcare Provider | 16,542 | 29 May 2019 | |||
| US Wellness Inc. | Business Associate | 15,818 | 22 Mar 2023 | |||
| CareFirst Administrators | Health Plan | 14,538 | 18 Nov 2022 | |||
| Gary C. Spinks, DMD, PC | Healthcare Provider | 1,000 | 13 Dec 2010 | |||
| Zenith Administrators, Inc. | Business Associate | 800 | 29 Dec 2010 |
Index / Companion schedules
13 HHS breach register
→Hub: every filing, by state, year and entity.
04 Biggest breaches
→Mega-breaches with primary-source cost figures.
Industry / Healthcare
→IBM 2026: $6.64M average, 13 years at #1.
Regulation / HIPAA penalties
→OCR enforcement tiers and the 60-day rule.
11 50-state laws
→Deadline, AG threshold and penalties per state.
Cost / Per record
→Where the per-record model is reliable.
Provenance
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights, Breach Portal (breaches affecting 500 or more individuals), retrieved 2026-08-28. Public domain. Individuals affected and dates as reported by the covered entity.
Portal: ocrportal.hhs.gov breach report. Statutory basis: HITECH Act section 13402(e)(4): the Secretary must post a list of breaches of unsecured protected health information affecting 500 or more individuals. Breaches affecting fewer than 500 individuals are reported to OCR annually and are not posted, so they are not on this register. Status wording follows the portal's two tabs ("Cases Currently Under Investigation" and "Archive") as of 28 August 2026; a filing moves to the archive when OCR closes the case. Modelled costs on this site are a method applied to the reported count, using IBM Cost of a Data Breach per-record figures, and are never a cost disclosed by the entity. This row: hhs-breach-archive__2026-08-28.csv, export row 7156.
Corrections: if you represent a listed entity and the portal row has been amended, email [email protected] with the portal entry and we will re-pull the export.