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While I'd love to stop receiving junk mail, I don't think I should have to pay for the privilege. I wish there was something similar to the national "do-not-call" list for junk mail.

I too am severely annoyed by junk mail, but would not pay for the privilege of being junk-free. I took a look at one of the junk mail packs we receive, did a bit of Google-ing, found the company's website, and took our address off of their list. However, I think we might have been re-added to the list. Either that, or there is more than one junk mail provider. But we're definitely down from 4x a week. Sheesh!

There is a no-mail list, but it doesn't pick up everything. From what I understand of this GreenDimes service, they'll actually call and write to get your name off lists.

Here's the "do not mail" list:

http://www.dmaconsumers.org/offmailinglist.html

Or, you could go to junkbuster.org and use their free service to generate "take me off your list" letters (maybe 6 letters total needed) and accomplish the same thing for free. Then take the money you saved and plant a tree.

i signed up last fall and it has definitely made a difference. you can periodically be re-added back to various mailing lists, so these services (greendimes, 41pounds) try to take care of that for you. you can also pick and stop catalogs.

i think the point is that it takes more effort to do this for free than most people are willing to do. greendimes is $36/year, 41 pounds is $41 for 5 years but doesn't seem to have as many specific services besides getting off the dma (like the catalog requests).

oops, correction- 41 pounds does catalogs too

By paying for this convenience we are not only are we putting a stop to annoying junk mail but we are also contributing to replacing the many trees that have already been cut down. I heard a fact that junk mail alone results in 44 million trees cut down per year. Greendimes helps to reverse that number and offers you the convenience of not receiving junk mail. I signed up and am very pleased with their service! I highly recommend greendimes.com

I get almost no junk mail, and I didn't register with any central list. Years ago, I started sending back all those pre-paid envelopes that companies were sending me to reply to their offers. My reply was always 'NO thanks' (I'd check the 'no' box, or I would put a big X over their offer). Then with a big black Sharpie I would ask them to remove my name and address from their mailing lists ASAP. It works. You don't have to be on hold. And they pay for the postage.

When I get offers or catalogs that don't have self-address reply cards, I just call them up and ask them to remove my address, AND also not to further distribute it. At first, this took some time. Now they come so infrequently that I have to do it only rarely.

Do Not Mail Opt-Out Law would be fair to everyone.

The proposed recent "Do not mail" is an Opt-Out law. Only those not desiring advertising mail need opt-out. Anyone desiring advertising mail can do nothing - and continue to receive it. Why deny those wishing to avoid advertising mail the power to do so?

I do not consider handling unwanted advertising placed against my will on my personal property to be a civic obligation!

The US Supreme Court said in the Rowan case in 1970, ““In today's [1970] complex society we are inescapably captive audiences for many purposes, but a sufficient measure of individual autonomy must survive to permit every householder to exercise control over unwanted mail. To make the householder the exclusive and final judge of what will cross his threshold undoubtedly has the effect of impeding the flow of ideas, information, and arguments that, ideally, he should receive and consider. Today's merchandising methods, the plethora of mass mailings subsidized by low postal rates, and the growth of the sale of large mailing lists as an industry in itself have changed the mailman from a carrier of primarily private communications, as he was in a more leisurely day, and have made him an adjunct of the mass mailer who sends unsolicited and often unwanted mail into every home. It places no strain on the doctrine of judicial notice to observe that whether measured by pieces or pounds, Everyman's mail today is made up overwhelmingly of material he did not seek from persons he does not know. And all too often it is matter he finds offensive.”

Furthermore, the Supreme Court said, “the mailer's right to communicate is circumscribed only by an affirmative act of the addressee giving notice that he wishes no further mailings from that mailer.

To hold less would tend to license a form of trespass and would make hardly more sense than to say that a radio or television viewer may not twist the dial to cut off an offensive or boring communication and thus bar its entering his home. Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit; we see no basis for according the printed word or pictures a different or more preferred status because they are sent by mail.”

We need a nationwide “Do Not Mail” law to create a one-stop, convenient place for homeowners to give senders the aforementioned affirmative notice that we do not want certain kinds of mail sent to our homes.

http://www.newdream.org/emails/ta19.html

Signed,
Ramsey A Fahel

US Postal Service won’t let you refuse mail.

If the US Postal Service would abide by its own rule, each homeowner could easily stop junk mail from getting into their mailbox by putting a written notice on their mailbox expressing their preference.

The US Postal Services practices are supposed to be according to the Domestic Mail Manual (DMM). The DMM contains provision 508.1.1.2 that says, “Refusal at Delivery: The addressee may refuse to accept a mailpiece when it is offered for delivery.” I interpret this rule to mean that if a homeowner wants to refuse an unwanted mailpiece (i.e. junk mail), the homeowner can do so when the mailpiece is offered for delivery. More to the point – refuse it before it is put into the mailbox!


In practical application, since the postal carrier comes to homes at different times each day, the homeowner cannot be waiting at the mailbox to dialogue with the mail carrier about each mailpiece. The only realistic way to interpret 508.1.1.2 therefore is that the homeowner should post a notice on the mailbox telling the postal carrier about the homeowner’s preference. The notice to the postal service must be specific and unambiguous. For instance, a homeowner should certainly be able to write, “No mail that is not addressed to the Jones” because that does not require the postal carrier to make a subjective judgment. On the other hand, it would not be acceptable to write “no junk mail” because the definition of “junk mail” is subjective and the mail carrier cannot decide.


Unfortunately, the US Postal Service has written to me that they will NOT honor a notice refusing mail, not matter how specifically it is worded, because the postal carrier does not have time to sort through the mail at my mailbox to pick out the pieces that are not addressed to me. Therefore, the US Postal Service is passing their sorting and disposing task onto me by putting all the mail they want into my mailbox, even though this seemingly violates 508.1.1.2.


Since the U.S. Postal Service will not abide by 508.1.1.2, homeowners need to stop unwanted mail at the source (i.e. by blocking the sender from sending it). We need a nationwide “Do Not Mail” law to create a one-stop, convenient place for homeowners to give senders notice that we do not want certain kinds of mail sent to our homes.


http://www.newdream.org/emails/ta19.html


Signed,

Ramsey A Fahel