It might be for the same reason why there is a little box on a birth certificate application for New born's that you check or leave blank if you do or don't want the local paper to publish notice of your child's birth. I don't know if it's still done as general practice, but I know at one time, it was perfectly legal for local papers to be sent the birth information of all babies born in a week, and to publish that in the paper without the parents consent or even knowledge. It was still being done as late as 14 years ago when my daughter was born(had an issue with the paper publishing when I had checked that box for "Do not release birth information for publishing." So that's probably what that is. Amy