About 8 years ago, I wondered the same thing. I looked at the footer of the first or last page of those to find a company name or website. Opting out was very simple for all of them.
Most websites asked for an address only. Some asked for a little more information, but to my surprise, it worked. I haven't received that ream of coupons in years, and in the off-chance that something new appears (usually something credit related), I've been able to opt-out just fine.
Wouldn't that be counter-productive, by showing them "yes this address is active and someone's reading your spam" as well as potentially allowing them to correlate your mailing address with online identifiers like IP address, browser fingerprint or advertising cookies?
I've done it twice (since moving residences). I received paper spam almost daily at the first place. I contacted around 15 different companies to get it all sorted. The second place was only 5 or so.
At first I balked but then I realized somebody would probably enter every single person’s name and address in the country if they didn’t have some kind of cost associated with it.
Still stinks to pay someone not to harass you. But I guess that’s been common throughout history.
After that unsubscribe, I've had to reach out to USPS several times when they still deliver the coupons to me and those coupons have someone else's address on them. I'm unsubscribed but USPS doesn't care and delivers anyway.
There is also a USPS service called Every Door Delivery Mail (EDDM) where USPS guarantees delivery to every address in a certain area. There is no way to opt out of EDDM.
You are incorrect, but only technically. You can opt out of EDDM at the DMA website, but the whole chain of custody for handling the opt-out is so convoluted that it's effectively pointless.
What happens is that the DMA maintains an opt-out list which the mailers are supposed to check. Then they add your address to a cover sheet called a facing slip which they pass to the local USPS when they hand off the ads. The USPS is then supposed to give those addresses to the mail carrier and the mail carrier is supposed to check it when delivering the ads.
In reality, since EDDM is intended for blanket coverage of local ads, practically no local advertisers bother or are even aware of the opt-out list, and even if they did the mail carrier will probably ignore the list, so signing up has little effect.
The best way to "opt out" is to be a dick to your mail carrier. Put a sign on your mailbox that says "NO EDDM: unaddressed mail will be refused" and then follow through on your threat by forcing your carrier to take back all EDDM ads the next day. My mail carrier quickly realized that there was no point delivering EDDM ads to my house.
You just write REFUSED on the unopened letter. It's best to scribble out your address to prevent their automated system from simply re-delivering it to you. I do this on postcards as well (which cannot be opened by definition) and they will take those. If it's first class mail they'll return it to the sender, otherwise they will take it back and discard/recycle it.
Do you know if this might work for a PO Box as well? I once spoke to an agent at the window of the post office where my PO Box lives about this. I asked if I could put some sort of notice like the one you're suggesting, but the person claimed there was no way to stop receiving fliers in my box because the companies pay a lot for them to be delivered (paraphrased).
At my post office they refer to the coupon crap as ADVO. I put a NO ADVO sticker in my box. Anything that doesn't have my address on it goes into the community outgoing mail slot. It gets better for a while then someone goes on vacation or quits and we go through it again.
It works surprisingly well. A few companies like Micro Center still sends out advertisements but the vast majority of my junk mail stopped after joining the do not mail list. Works much better than the do not call list.
I did this and it was worth it. I still get a few pieces of mail spam (AT&T is literally the worst, and I have called them repeatedly) but it's dramatically better.
Entirely nonsense that there's costs and whatnot associated with it. I am sure it's a PII goldmine for some script kiddie who gets lucky.
I spent 5 years trying to get AT&T Time Warner to stop sending monthly ads for their cable internet. I finally got someone to admit that they don't maintain a "do not mail" list and that every other CSR I spoke to had lied to me. What finally worked was threatening a lawsuit and restraining order. The ads stopped immediately.
I did this years ago and it helped a lot. Most direct mailers respect the list with the exception of a few credit card companies, and insurance associated with band accounts.
Some Charities do not respect the list and send me all manner of things. (Gloves was the most egregious from a charity I haven't given too.)
You mean Physical mailbox at your house/apartment ? Good luck with that. I am willing to pay $5/Month to USPS if they stop sending paper spam to my mailbox but that's how they supposedly stay afloat today since they don't have enough funding.
Our household has been trailing PaperKarma https://www.paperkarma.com/ for a month. It thinks we have unsubscribed from a substantial percentage of mailers. The volume of mail we get next month will be a good indicator of whether it actually works..
Hi, JT from PaperKarma here. It takes about 6-12 weeks (1.5-3 months) for mail to stop once you submit an opt-out request. This is due to in progress campaigns and the fact mailers print several waves of a campaign upfront. Rest assured you are no longer on the lists the next time they go to print!
Or better, get them to abolish USPS. 99% of the things you get in the mail should be handled by email. The other 1% of critical things are frankly handled better, faster and more reliably by private carriers..
For better or worse it's almost 2020, not 1820. Let's start acting like it.
So because email is better, we should abandon the USPS? That's a ridiculous argument. Email accounts practically at the whim of big corporations. You know, the ones who ban people from their entire Google account because they posted emojis in a chat?[0] Yeah, that'll be good.
The private sector may be more efficient than the government, but that's because of bureaucracy imposed by the politicians themselves.
Tell me, how long does it take UPS or FedEx to ship a package across the US? At least 5 business days for the cheapest. USPS gets it there in 3.
Here's some more facts you may not know (that show why the USPS is good):
* The USPS, unlike UPS and FedEx, have a legal mandate to attempt to deliver every letter and parcel if it's in the US.
* Your mail sent through USPS is protected from searches without a warrant by law. You can't say the same about UPS and FedEx.
* I can send a small letter through USPS for $.55. How much does a private courier charge?
USPS regularly fails to deliver important mail to me. Like it straight up doesn't show up. Never accounted for or mentioned. Almost all of these important mailings would be handled faster, safer, more reliably and more eco friendly online.
While every carrier makes mistakes, the difference is that the USPS is legally required to deliver to you. When you don't get your USPS mail, it is a mistake, and they're required to do something about it.
When some people don't get their UPS/FedEx/etc, if you call up to complain, the answer is "Oh yeah, we don't service your address. Have a nice day."
Functioning governments really really need a way to physically deliver items to a person in a way that cannot be replaced by private carriers or email systems. This isn't about you getting your Amazon packages or your power bill. This is about the operational stability of basic government services.
There are places in the US where UPS and FedEx do not deliver, and people live there -- people who the US government is legally required to correspond with. They cannot fulfill those obligations without the USPS.
You're thinking like a lawyer. I'm thinking like a problem solver. The legal requirement (which by the way is not an absolute requirement) to deliver my mail is useless if my mail isn't actually delivered. And I mean literally useless. Let that sink in. I don't care (at all, not even a little bit) what their obligation is on paper if they can't actually do the thing we need them to do.
>When some people don't get their UPS/FedEx/etc, if you call up to complain, the answer is "Oh yeah, we don't service your address. Have a nice day."
And if you call USPS, they're just going to jump straight to "it's lost. have a nice day." I don't see how that is better.
Anyway, USPS absolutely does not deliver to every address. This is a myth that won't die for some reason.
>Functioning governments really really need a way to physically deliver items to a person in a way that cannot be replaced by private carriers or email systems.
Can you source this claim? What does my government need to mail me that can't be done by email?
>This isn't about you getting your Amazon packages or your power bill.
I don't use Amazon or get my power bill by snail mail. Not sure why you're bringing these up. They're irrelevant.
>This is about the operational stability of basic government services.
We might need a reliable parcel deliverer (ie, something other that USPS).
>There are places in the US where UPS and FedEx do not deliver, and people live there
And there are places where USPS doesn't deliver. At my house, on a regular basis for example, they don't deliver important parcels.
Also many communities around the country and outside of the country. Email fixes basically all of this.
>-- people who the US government is legally required to correspond with.
Who they should be able to correspond with by email in most cases. In other cases they could contract with a more reliable carrier or have a pared down service for those remote area.
In still more cases, the USPS doesn't service certain areas at all.
>They cannot fulfill those obligations without the USPS.
Nor can they fulfill them solely with USPS. We need to acknowledge that email is a faster, safer and more reliable source of communicating with most people. Its almost 2020.
> You're thinking like a lawyer. I'm thinking like a problem solver.
Yes, the reasons that the USPS is important are mainly legal reasons. Your personal frustrations with what I presume is commercial mail is not one of those reasons. You have alternatives for your commercial needs, and you are free to use them.
The USPS exists because the government has needs that commercial carriers simply cannot fulfill; here's the first 3 examples I could think of:
1. A guarantee of service via direct control. The federal government directly controls the USPS board. Commercial services have no obligation to fulfill any of the government's needs, and could even be legally obligated by their fiduciary duty to deny those needs, even if they wanted to do otherwise. The needs of the government are not always profitable, often they're not.
2. Proper chain of custody. Email simply doesn't address this, and is notoriously awful at it. Commercial delivery services do this better than email, but do so voluntarily, and to their own liking (see #1). On the other hand, some USPS services like Registered Mail can be used for some types of classified documents.
3. Longstanding (and strong) legal precedent regarding its use. Mail has a ton of privilege over electronic communications. It also has privilege over commercial deliveries.
I agree with the sentiment that there is not much point in delivering any sort of documents by postal mail. However, we don't have any large scale way of providing email to the masses with the same (or better) practical and legal guarantees. Practical: Not tied to a company, accessible, etc. Legal: Preferably end to end encrypted, read receipts and how to handle them, nominees and death of the mailbox owner etc. In general, I feel that it's hard and probably for the best that email doesn't become "official".
For a middle ground, I would like USPS to offer a service where they scan and send you the docs and you agree to some terms. They already scan the addresses and show you the informed mail digest. I don't care if they open it and scan it. It's all junk anyway.
Sure but here is what everyone in this thread is missing: there is nothing (and I mean nothing) inherently official or legal about mail except that the government designated it as official 100+ years ago.
If the official channel was email and I said "let's switch to snail mail" you would all rightfully call me an idiot. You/we are all wedded to a really bad paradigm.
There's nothing stopping the government from letting you opt into an official email box.
You are discounting the very thing that makes it important: the fact that it is directly beholden to the law.
If the government controlled the entire email system, like they do the USPS, it wouldn’t be email as you know it today.
But as email stands today, it relies on the voluntary cooperation of third-parties who operate on a best-effort basis. It has no governance.
That’s a show stopper, not only for the US government, but for most governments around the world. I’m not aware of any country that has found it reasonable to do as you’re suggesting. Even Estonia, which has online elections, still finds it prudent to have a national mail service.
I'm puzzled. When did handwa ING a problem, propose to abolish the existing solution and blindly hope that the market will solve it became "thinking like a problem solver".
>Email accounts practically at the whim of big corporations
As are mail boxes unless you own house outright or have a mom and pop landlord (which is really not much better).
>The private sector may be more efficient than the government, but that's because of bureaucracy imposed by the politicians themselves.
Wait what? No it's the opposite. There are ridiculous laws that attempt to protect the USPS monopoly. For example, only they can deliver to your mailbox.
Only USPS is allowed to deliver letters. USPS does not pay state or federal taxes, etc. There is all kinda of bureaucracy in place to protect USPS and still the private carriers are better.
>Tell me, how long does it take UPS or FedEx to ship a package across the US? At least 5 business days for the cheapest. USPS gets it there in 3.
Yes it's easy to be cheaper when you don't pay any taxes. Except they're not actually cheaper except for most packages between 2 and 5 pounds.
>* The USPS, unlike UPS and FedEx, have a legal mandate to attempt to deliver every letter and parcel if it's in the US.
And yet they fail stunningly at delivering things.
>* Your mail sent through USPS is protected from searches without a warrant by law. You can't say the same about UPS and FedEx.
I agree it's absurd that the law grants these special powers to USPS. All carriers' customers should get this protection.
>* I can send a small letter through USPS for $.55. How much does a private courier charge?
Wait what? It's illegal for anyone else to deliver letters. You're making my case for me.
Anyway, we need to stop sending letters. It's almost 2020.
> As are mail boxes unless you own house outright or have a mom and pop landlord (which is really not much better).
What? How? No one is legally allowed to open a mailbox that isn’t theirs. If someone is opening your mailbox that isn’t a postman, report it; it’s a federal crime.
What? If you are evicted the next tenant absolutely can and will open the mailbox. That's how mailboxes work. If you reported that you'd be laughed out of the post office.
Exactly. It's enormously insecure unless you can somehow control the next tenant or you actually think the least-enforced crime on the planet is going to stop people from invading your privacy.
If you are worried about Google kicking you off of the platform you should be terrified about what your landlord can to.
Most evictions are proper. Most tenants don't fight back, regardless. To be clear my complaints about mail are not about protecting well off yuppies who are going to be suing their landlords for improper eviction.
Many people are housing insecure, disabled, homeless, etc. You're basically removing all of these people from the system.
The issue isn't who owns the mailbox. It's whose mail is in it. You are absolutely allowed to open a mailbox with someone else's mail (even if it's extremely sensitive). It just needs to be your mailbox.
My physical mailbox is the only *mail I have that isn't overrun. I ignore spims, spams, scams 50% based on just the fact that if the Social Security Administration, IRS, or Sheriff wanted to contact me, I know they would send a letter.
Exactly. Let's make the mailbox actually useful again by removing the monopoly on it. Then banning the USPS from delivering spam would be a good next step.
Why do you keep pointing out the “monopoly” on mailboxes? Yes, only the USPS can legally put your mail in it, but you’re missing the point: a private corporation should not run something as important as mail. Yes, private couriers are a thing, but the USPS is essential.
Even today, not everyone has an email address. And those that do, they’re at the whims of the corporation. In my original comment, I mentioned google banning people’s entire accounts because they did what the streamer wanted. Would you like your email account to be inaccessible when you decide to protest that corporation?
UPS and FedEx charge too much, and I do regular media shipping, so No, do not abolish them. If I could direct all of my tax money that goes to the US military into the USPS I would do that. Give them more money.
The fact that you personally use a heavily subsidized, underpriced service is not really an argument for keeping it on a national scale.
"I personally use and like a service" is a different statement than "it's in our national interest to continue gifting that service $10b per year in subsidies and benefits".
#1 assuming I am a he, you're already off to a terrible start. #2 seemingly believing that I am the only person who uses this service #3 the point is that it's not a useless service, and real people use and need it. turn on your brain.
We need to update laws for the fact that we now live in 2020 and not 1820.
I understand that for most healthy, housed, able-bodied, privileged people, mail is a decent way to get in touch with people. For the rest of us email/web is safer, faster, more secure, less burdensome, easier to verify, better for the environment, easier to store, etc.
That’s not what you sounded like in your original post. In that, you say to abolish the USPS, not that we should update our laws because email is a thing now.
I'm not sure what your point is here. As I said in my first post, it's 2020 almost. Let's start acting like it. It has been a long long time since snail mail was the most reliable form of communication.
There are many, many things that law requires be delivered by mail. You'd have to change hundreds (thousands?) of state and federal laws before you could get rid of a semi-public mailing service.
Most of them should have a phone number somewhere on there that you have to call and ask to be taken off their list.
There are also DMAchoice and CatalogChoice to take you off, but I'm never quite sure if it's working because I still get plenty.
There is also the fun prank one guy did where he would mail back a bunch of pennies to anyone who send him an unsolicited pre-paid envelope. The postage is calculated by weight, so it's just a nice little middle finger.
That's not hard, there are many ways to get your name and address ranging from data breaches to public tax records. So what do you want to do about it? Make reselling an address illegal? Half the economy would collapse out of inability to function; your doctor couldn't pay a service to send out their bill, for example. That's a US example but there are equivalents in other countries.
How about make it so voter registration, vehicle registration, and property purchases are not public records?
There is no legitimate reason why everyone on the planet needs to have open access to all of that information AND be free to use it for commercial purposes
