The reason? In addition to frustrating the very customers that the USPS is supposed to be serving, the USPS’ junk mail-centric business model isn’t very profitable. At all. They lost nearly $300 million in the last three months of 2009 alone, following several years of billion dollar losses.
By all accounts this news is a strong signal that the USPS is finally coming to terms with the way Americans communicate in the 21st Century. We’re hoping that part of that awakening includes an understanding that in the 21st Century, Americans expect to have a choice in what they are or are not receiving.
Apparently one of the reforms currently being bandied about is the creation of “a world-class website” for the USPS. Our hope is that they’ll seize this opportunity to use that website to run a free, comprehensive, and enforceable Do Not Mail Registry for all Americans to use. The USPS could generate revenue both by selling lists of people who want to receive direct mail to businesses, and also by fining business that violate the registry.
The USPS needs money, and American citizens demand choice. Win-win. Oh, and disrespectful junk mailers lose. So win-win-lose.
Great news in the fight to regain control of our mailboxes: the Seattle City Council just passed a resolution calling for a Do Not Mail registry in the state of Washington! Thanks to the tireless work of ForestEthics supporters like you across the country, we’re making real headway in the campaign to reclaim our mailboxes, our privacy, and our forests.
Check out this brief online video we made about the victory:
Seattle media outlets have taken notice of our efforts:
After we won, local Seattle news continued to focus on the story: read this punchy post from Seattle’s weekly, The Stranger, and check out some more of the media hits from local blogs and news portals such as Seattlest, Investigate West, Catalog Choice’s Paperless Blog, and Kiro Radio. And, if you want to see a great example of lazy journalism in the age of outmoded mainstream press, check out this piece from Seattle Times in which the author asserts that “The environmental community supported the resolution because of all the extra trash created by unwanted mail.” Sorry Times, but trash alone, albeit a major issue in the “environmental community,” hardly encompasses the wide range of environmental issues that are caused by the production, distribution, and disposal of junk mail. Perhaps an interview with a representative from this community could have elucidated on this myriad of issues? Oh, and yes, we are also quite simply annoyed by it and concerned about our privacy – just like most Americans.
In December 2009, we released our annual junk mail scorecard and saw three top junk mailers — American Express, Chase and Capital One — respond to the pressure that supporters like you are helping to build. Previously, these companies refused to even talk to us about their junk mail habits, but your Return to Offender actions got them talking. Now, we are committed to keeping their feet to the fire until they reform their wasteful practices.
Great news for the movement to take back our mailboxes: Today the Seattle City Council approved a resolution (8 to 1) calling for a Do Not Mail registry in the state of Washington! Much like the national Do Not Call registry, a Do Not Mail registry would allow consumers a free, effective way to opt out of any direct mailings that they don’t want.
San Francisco passed a similar resolution last year, and now with two major cities calling for Do Not Mail registries, it is more clear than ever that people want the choice to stop receiving unwanted junk mail. This is hardly surprising, since our mailboxes are filled to the brim with unwanted mail. (On average, each U.S. adult resident receives 41 pounds of direct mail every year.)
The Seattle resolution goes further than just calling for an eventual state-wide registry, it also directs the Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) to evaluate the current mail opt-out services available and recommend the most effective one to the City Council. This way, the SPU can see which companies actually remove consumers from their lists, bringing us closer to solutions that local cities everywhere can adopt.
Thanks to all the city council members who voted for the change Seattle wants, our Seattle supporters who took on volunteer shifts to get out the word about the council vote, and to all the Seattlites who made phone calls, sent messages, and testified in support of the resolution!
Click on this image to download the full, two-page scorecard
Looking back over the years of the ‘Naughty/Nice List,’ it is heartening to see how companies in the direct mailing industry have improved their practices on forest destruction and paper consumption.
In 2006, the first year of our report, only three businesses made it onto Santa’s Nice list, but this year there are a total of eleven companies working to implement more sustainable paper policies. Of course, there is still a long way to go for corporations like Sears, which continues to send excessive mailings and certifies its paper through the timber industry stooge SFI.
The list assigns scores to major catalog retailers and companies in the financial sector in categories such as Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification, paper reduction, and use of recycled content. The rating system provides consumers with a good indicator to compare various companies’ practices.
Leaders such as Timberland, Patagonia, and others are clearly demonstrating that they can maintain profits while also reducing deforestation and climate change. Let’s make sure these innovators are applauded, and that the laggards are called out.
I guess it’s a sign of the times that the Wall Street Journal’s Venture Capital blog has an ongoing series titled “Turning Out the Lights”, chronicling various start-ups that have reached the end of their (ad)venture in capital.
One of their recent eulogies was for the junk mail opt-out site ProQuo, one of several services that over the last few years has offered to help reduce your junk mail. Unlike some sites, ProQuo was willing to help you out for free. Sort of:
“ProQuo planned to generate revenue through marketing from companies that pay for the right to market to consumers – based on consumers’ preferences.”
There are a few different ways this model could have broken down as a revenue generator, but one of them might have been that, given the choice of which advertisers they wanted to hear from, consumers often chose very few or none at all. Because consumers by and large hate junk mail, and they resent it more than other types of advertising.
This has been a hard truth for a lot of companies to grasp. There persists in the marketing industry a somewhat weird idea that even with lots of less annoying or wasteful advertising options available to them, junk mail must continue to be sent to people who don’t want it. A while back we covered this lobbyist’s advice that companies should give customers special offers via junk mail that aren’t available online or elsewhere. But why would you want to do this? Why not… meet the customer where they’d like to be met? You know, ‘the customer is always right’ and all that good stuff.
Anyway, things didn’t work out so well for ProQuo. And while I think they made an effort to address consumer frustration with junk mail’s waste and annoyance, they weren’t able to offer something enforceable, or something that could outlast the whims of venture capital and the forces of commerce.
Which is why…. we should institute a Do Not Mail Registry. And make it enforceable, like Do Not Call. Operated by the government. Preferably as part of an ambitious plan to reimagine the US Postal Service. And we consumers can be a little happier. Not receiving junk mail. Or receiving it. As is our wont.
You think junk mail is a colossal waste of paper, right? Of course you do. Well, it’s time to take a stand against the waste and annoyance of the junk mail industry.
Today, take that junk mail you’ve been collecting, write RETURN TO OFFENDER in bold letters on a postage-paid return envelope from one of our biggest offenders–Capital One, Bank of America, or American Express–and drop that junk back into the mail.
Want to share your action and find out what other folks are doing? Tell us about your action and upload a photo. Be sure and check back later to see what other supporters are up to.
By joining this day of action, you are strengthening the campaign to stop junk mail and protect Endangered Forests. In the coming months, we’ll be meeting directly with these biggest junk mail offenders. Keeping the pressure on Capital One, Bank of America, and American Express is an integral part of the strategy to shift the industry towards something greener and less annoying than junk mail.
P.S. Didn’t get a postage-paid envelope to one of the top three offenders? Well, if you’re up to splurging a bit to purchase a stamp — you can send all of your junk mail in an envelope to any of these corporate headquarters:
Capital One
1680 Capital One Dr.
McLean, VA 22102-3407
Bank of America
100 N. Tryon St., Bank of America Corporate Center
Charlotte, NC 28255
The folks at Unjunk Mail–a division of the direct marketing company Dukky–are attempting to carve something of a middle way through the vast chasm between the American public and the Junk Mail Industry. They asked us to do a guest blog post about Do Not Mail, and I took the opportunity to discuss the difference between our goal of an enforceable Do Not Mail Registry and the gaggle of unenforceable opt-out tools that currently dot the landscape.
Direct Mail News reports that the following remark by Postmaster General John Potter during a speech to the National Press Club was made in reference to the prospect of Do Not Mail:
“Somehow, they think a sale offer coming through the mail — as opposed to a newspaper, a magazine, TV, radio or the Internet — is a bad thing. Ads pay for the Internet, as well as broadcast TV and radio programs,” he said during a speech at the National Press Club. “So, too, ad mail helps pay for universal mail service in America.”
Do-not-mail legislation has proponents, including the nonprofit ForestEthics, which runs the Web site DoNotMail.org. The portal urges consumers to sign a petition to stop “junk mail,” citing environmental concerns. Earlier this year, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a non-binding resolution calling on California and the US Congress to create a Do Not Mail registry. It was the first time lawmakers in the US voted on allowing consumers to block unsolicited mail.
Call me crazy, but that ’somehow‘ strikes me as fairly insincere, considering that both the annoyance of the public at large and the growing concerns about junk mail’s environmental impacts are incredibly well-documented. This kind of cavalier ignorance is rhetorically too cute by half, and sadly, shows little in the way of real Postal Service leadership on an important issue.
As for the rest of that quote, Potter seems to be purposefully conflating all advertising together so as to create a straw man of people who hate all advertising and dislike the simple fact that advertising helps pay for things, or something. Which is ridiculous—this isn’t the Do Not Sell Stuff Campaign. We’re just talking about junk mail, and the American public has very specific and well-cited reasons for disliking it. There’s no ’somehow’ about it.
Recently a few writers have taken aim at the notion that the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) intends for their junk mail opt-out tool, DMAChoice, to really and truly allow you to exercise control over the flow of junk mail into your home.
To be sure, some people have found the DMA’s opt-out tool helpful, and some of the credit for that goes to all the Americans who have expressed their frustration with junk mail and put pressure on the DMA to pick up their game a bit. But the DMA’s half-measures still appear to fall short. For example, check out this investigative post from Jonathan Kamens, “DMA’s Mail Preference Service: Once a fraud, always a fraud.” The widely-popular Consumerist.com even excerpted Jonathan’s findings in Chris Walters’ postentitled “Direct Marketing Opt Out Website is a Joke.”
The DMA exists to protect the interests of the direct marketing industry, including the selling of personal information lists, and the lobbying of government officials and politicians who show any inkling of support for enforceable opt-out tools. It has often resorted to transparent propaganda when faced with junk mail’s environmental impacts. (Note that the website of Mail Moves America,theDMA’s chief D.C. lobbying group, feeds us this all-time wtf: “Direct Mail is not trees, it is printed communication.”)
What we need, of course, is a real Do Not Mail Registry– enforceable, free, comprehensive, and not just another way for junk mailers to collect information, while continuing to waste as much paper as possible.
UPDATE 10.12.09 — The original version of this post did not in fact point out that Consumerist.com’s post included many large excerpts from Jonathan Kamens’ original blog post.
Americans who sign up with the Federal Do Not Call Registry do so because they don’t want to be bothered by telemarketers. And when telemarketers try to call them anyway, the Federal government steps in and enforces the law:
Dish Network Dealers Settle With FTC Over ‘Do Not Call’ Charges
Two authorized dealers of the satellite television provider Dish Network, formerly known as EchoStar, have agreed to settle charges that they violated the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule by calling consumers whose numbers are on the Do Not Call Registry.
However, when Americans sign up with one of the various junk mail opt-out systems floating around, and junk mailers send them junk mail anyway, nobody necessarily does anything.
Which I would say is a slight flaw in this whole “just let the junk mail industry run the junk mail opt-out system” logic.
At the end of this article titled “DMA, Forest Ethics trade jibes Over SF Do Not Mail Resolution” (the article’s actually not that exciting), the writer asks a “lobbyist” for his/her take on how to continue to beat down Do Not Mail and consumer choice:
The Lobbyist’s Take: Consumers are not just price-sensitive, in today’s economy they’re price-driven. If this resolution ever threatens to be put to public vote, individual mailers should use mass media to showcase examples of bargains available only to through-the-mail shoppers…and then point out that any consumer electing to be on the do-not-mail list is going to pay more. Note the wording there, folks: It ain’t about missing out: it’s about paying more. We’re in hard-sell times. And an interesting note: Postmaster general Jack Potter has commented that when standard mail volume drops, per-piece standard mail prices rise. Any local SF merchants, who use direct mail to generate foot traffic, care to weigh in?
I’ll weigh in!
The whole logic behind this strikes me as weird. Let me see if I understand this right:
Marketers know that large numbers of Americans would prefer not to be advertised to through the mail;
This lobbyist is suggesting that instead of taking this information to heart and adapting to give customers what they want, direct marketers should reject their customers’ wishes and instead try to limit their customers’ options only to the thing that they don’t want, in the hopes of convincing them that what they don’t want is actually something that they do want.
Like, doesn’t this violate some pretty basic tenets of marketing? This is like NBC or CBS taking their worst rated show and, instead of canceling it, putting it on 24 hours a day: “Then they’ll have no choice but to like it!”
The Minnesota Attorney General’s office recently produced a resource guide for seniors who find themselves especially at risk from fraudulent junk mail schemes.
From the guide:
Are you tired of digging through piles of junk mail to find bills, bank statements, and letters? Are you constantly interrupted by telemarketing calls? If you are, you are not alone. It is estimated that nearly four million tons of junk mail is sent every year – half of which is never opened. The Attorney General’s Office offers the following tips for reducing junk mail and telemarketing calls.
Yes, and yes! We are tired of losing actual mail—important mail—in endless piles of junk mail. But after listing several tools that are currently available to help reduce junk mail (including the Direct Mail Association’s own opt-out system), the guide includes this disclaimer:
Your name should be removed from DMA member lists for three years. (It may take up to three months for you to see a decrease in the amount of mail you receive.) Remember, this does not eliminate all junk mail. You will continue to receive mail from companies and organizations that do not belong to the DMA.
Now, wouldn’t it be something if an easy opt-out system actually did exist? Partial, industry-run solutions are only going to give us partial, industry-defined successes.
So, kudos to Minnesota for recognizing the problem. Now, let’s work towards a real solution!
Annabelle Gurwitch, host of Planet Green’s show “Wa$ted” and all-around renaissance progressive, was recently on the CBS Early Show, where the host made a predictable ‘going green can help you save green’ joke and Annabelle discussed one of her favorite topics: donotmail.org!
With symphony musicians in the family, our home is often filled the sounds of concertos, symphonies, and string quartets. When I write (which I do a lot), lyrics can break my concentration, so if I’m sitting down to plot out a first draft of something, it’s All Classical radio or nothing.
Like a lot of organizations, they send out some direct mail. But the last mailing they sent me was definitely the best because, well, it’s going to be the last! Here it is:
Beginning July 1, we are eliminating Clef Notes, our monthly printed newsletter. This will save All Classical over $65,000 per year and save many trees. From a stewardship point of view, it was hard for us as broadcasters to continue to incur printing costs and distribute content on paper that was redundant to our e-newsletter and website…
Kudos to All Classical for recognizing the cost—financial and environmental—that a monthly printed newsletter incurs, and for trying something new. How many other local businesses and nonprofits are doing the same? If you know of any, let us know in the comments!
Be ready to pay $5 – $10 per stamp when business mail is outlawed.
Question: who’s outlawing business mail?
Joe may truly be under the impression that business mail is at risk of becoming illegal, and if so, it’s probably because the junk mail industry loves to spread the rumor that somebody wants to make junk mail illegal. Check junk mail’s chief lobbyists at Mail Moves America:
Mail Moves America has been making progress the public debate against extremists determined to ban advertising mail at the expense of thousands of jobs.
Who are these extremists? ForestEthics has been working on junk mail for quite a while, and I couldn’t name a single group that is calling for a ban on junk mail.
As for us, ForestEthics’ Do Not Mail campaign seeks to give Americans the enforceable choice to opt-out of receiving junk mail. Anyone who wants to keep receiving it is free to do so.
The junk mail industry’s characterization of this as a ban isn’t honest, but it’s understandable: if they were to acknowledge that all we’re seeking is the simple choice not to receive junk mail, then it would be clear that our side is far more reasonable and less extreme than the industry, which is fixated on delivering junk mail at up to 400% of what consumers are actually demanding.
89% of Americans support the creation of a Do Not Mail Registry, but if you lied to them and said that Do Not Mail seeks to outlaw junk mail, support would probably be much lower.
And that’s their strategy: misrepresenting the facts. I could easily turn this into a joke about how junk mail quite often misrepresents things, but I’ll refrain from piling on for now.
Growing up in the 80s and 90s, stamp collecting was already becoming a somewhat retro hobby. But I do remember that it seemed like a big deal in 1993 when the Elvis stamps came out in 1993. I wasn’t completely sure why.
But there’s no question that, along with handmade cards and USPS uniforms (which I always thought were cool!) stamps have always been one of the more aesthetically interesting aspects of mail.
Every article I’ve seen on this has used “D’oh!” in its title, but I’m wondering what other jokes you Simpsons fans out there can come up with. There’s got to be some good ones.
Today, first class postage goes up for the third consecutive year to 44 cents, and it provides a good opportunity to think about who the US Postal Service really seems to be serving. While everyday citizens, like you and me, are again paying a little bit more, junk mailers, who already pay around a third of what we pay, are getting an extra 30% rebate this summer if they send out even more junk mail than they did last summer.
The USPS has taken a look at its precarious situation, and decided that the problem is that Americans aren’t receiving enough junk mail. They’re evidently uninterested in the fact that most Americans resent junk mail. And they certainly don’t mind all the paper waste at a time when deforestation is a major global climate issue.
Does this sound like a USPS headed in the right direction?
It’s not really about an increase of a few cents on a stamp, it’s about a government institution making sense. Call me crazy, but I think ‘making sense’ is generally a good goal for the goverment.
ForestEthics Executive Director Todd Paglia (pictured left) has a piece up on the Huffington Post about the US Postal Service’s massive summer sale for junk mailers who mail out more junk mail than they did last summer, and the contrasting first-class postage increase for the rest of us. Here’s the clincher:
As for the Postal Service itself, there has to be a better way. The USPS has a $15 billion line of taxpayer-backed credit, which it has been using at a worrisome clip. In fact, the U.S. Government Accountability Office predicts that its credit line could be maxed out by the end of 2010. As with the millions of wasteful credit card offers the USPS delivers every day, the bill will have finally come due, and the USPS’s spending spree will have gotten us no closer to a functional and just postal system.
Read the whole thing. It makes a strong case for reform in a segment of government that we rarely consider.
An anecdotal follow-up on Corinne’s post about Minnesota’s efforts to educate its citizens about junk mail scams…
I got a call last week from a pleasant, if slightly distraught, elderly woman named Earline in Sonoma County, CA. She was concerned about a suspicious mailing she’d received from something calling itself the “Auto Warranty Division”. In bold print suggesting dire urgency, the notice informed her that her auto insurance was due to expire, and that she must act quickly to extend her coverage.
But Earline doesn’t own a car. Likewise, she has no insurance on her non-existent car.
Earline called the local police station, who recommended that she call ForestEthics. It isn’t the first time we’ve been recommended by law enforcement, but while we’re flattered to be recognized for keeping tabs on the junk mail industry, we would prefer to see the police investigate suspicious activity like this. Earline probably isn’t the only person in her community to receive this mailing.
In particular, the elderly are at risk. Senior citizens are often hard-pressed to distinguish legitimately important mail from junk mail that merely screams “URGENT“. Older people also came of age during a time when they weren’t as likely to be preyed upon by mail.
As various sites have already documented, this service is quite possibly fraudulent. Yet it and many other less-than-forthright businesses presumably benefit from the same cheap pre-sorted rates as other direct mail.
The phone number listed on Earline’s mailing was 866-538-1212. I just got an automated message identifying the listing as “Automotive Financial Consultants”. Give them a call. Maybe you can get someone on the line. Ask them why they’d mail a notice warning of expiring auto insurance to a person with no car.
We met Chris Hoofnagle back in March when he showed up at the San Francisco Do Not Mail Resolution hearing, and proceeded to drop serious knowledge about consumer rights as it pertains to Do Not Mail, and to Do Not Call before it.
Turns out Chris’ testimony was just the tip of the iceberg as far as his overall expertise in matters of privacy law and consumer rights. Denialism, the blog to which he and his brother Mark contribute, is chock full of expert knowledge delivered in an easy, conversational manner. And it’s all about you the consumer and you the citizen.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by all the various shades of shadiness in our mail, on the phone, and online, but when I see vigilant minds like this winning with facts, reason, and a healthy sarcasm, I gotta say– I feel like I can take it on, too.
These guys are like the Batman and Spider-man of consumer advocacy bloggery!
But even Batman will tell Commissioner Gordon that Gotham needs something a little more comprehensive and enforceable than one dude with a cape running around the city trying to take on every bad guy.
There, you made me say it: Batman supports Do Not Mail. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, but there it is.
So check out: Denialism. We’re adding it to our blogroll today.
Take a minute to vote in this poll asking whether or not the U.S. should establish a national Do Not Mail Registry. Of course, we already know the vast majority of Americans support the creation of a registry (a 2007 Zogby poll that found a whopping 89% of Americans support the creation of a registry), but it’s a fun little internets activity nonetheless.
The article’s author, Jack Dunning, is a former junk mail consultant turned dedicated watchdog of an industry that in his opinion runs roughshod over our privacy and the environment. Junk mailers have a tough time getting their misinformation past him.
He’s been documenting the absurdity on his blog, the Dunning Report, for quite awhile but at the moment he also has a steady gig at Examiner.com.
On Monday we linked to a poll on Examiner.com that asked the question “Do we need a Do Not Mail Registry?” I voted, wrote up the blog post, and then basically forgot about it. It’s just an online poll, and online polls are less likely to reflect public opinion than to reflect who linked to it and encouraged people to vote a certain way. Like us!
So I was amused to check it today (left) and see that the current result is almost exactly the same as the much more authoritative 2007 Zogby poll, which showed that 89% of Americans support Do Not Mail.
The junk mail industry can’t actually convince Americans not to support Do Not Mail, but I’m somewhat surprised that they haven’t tried to take advantage of easily-manipulated online polls like this.
Today, in the shadow of Seattle’s Space Needle, Maggie Hussey became the 100,000th person to sign the petition calling for a national Do Not Mail Registry. Maggie signed after a member of Forest Ethics’ outreach team delivered their patented smooth junk mail info-rap. It’s irresistible.
It’s fitting that this milestone signature happened in Seattle, recently named the greenest large city in the country and home to our next push for a Do Not Mail Resolution! San Francisco was first in March, and now it’s Seattle’s turn, with the city hopefully giving way to a Do Not Mail registry for Washington state and beyond!
I was going to propose a toast, but let’s save it for later. For now, we’ll just say that it’s great to be at six figures, and it’s great to be in Seattle. Onward and upward….
Since 2007, ForestEthics has teamed up with Dogwood Alliance to create the Green Grades office supply report card to inform American consumers and large purchasers of office supply products about which companies’ paper practices safeguard the environment and the world’s forests.
Drawing from a company survey and our own research, the report card rates the office companies on six forest-related environmental measures, including the extent to which they avoid selling paper from Endangered Forests and other controversial sources, and to which they instead promote paper from certified well-managed forests and recycled
fiber. You can see the full press release here >>
Some of the following companies get A’s, some companies fail, and some fall in between: Amazon.com, FedEx Office, Office Depot, OfficeMax, PaperlinX, Staples, Target, Unisource, United Stationers, WalMart, and Xpedx. Get the full story on the performance of these companies here.
You can also view and/or print the report card below. Use the zoom or toggle full screen tool for easier viewing.
Here at the San Francisco ForestEthics office, we’re still recovering from last week’s fantastic annual event, 100 Million Trees: A Party to Stop Junk Mail, held at the W Hotel San Francisco. ForestEthics friends, supports, and grassroots activists came together to celebrate the millions of acres of forests that ForestEthics has protected to date (that’s more than 65 million acres and counting!), while toasting the momentum we’ve built over the last 18 months on one of our flagship campaigns: Do Not Mail.
Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi receives his award
It’s so rare that we take time out of our busy schedules to celebrate our victories and honor our leaders. That’s why it was such an honor to present San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi with our first annual In the Company of Giants Award for his leadership in sponsoring the nation’s first resolution calling for a state and national Do Not Mail Registry. Accepting the award, Ross gave a characteristically rousing speech about junk mail’s unacceptable impacts on our fragile environment, and his commitment to lead San Francisco, the state of California, and the nation towards a more common sense relationship with the planet.
The event was hosted by a great friend to forests everywhere, Annabelle Gurwitch–author, Planet Green TV personality, and woman of wit and boundless energy.
And once again, bringing the evening together, ForestEthics Executive Director Todd Paglia, spoke of the broader ForestEthics vision: a world where individuals, businesses, and industry work together to protect the planet.
I had a great time catching up with friends and allies, meeting people who are passionate about forests and climate, and sipping too much moderate amounts of delicious wine. We are now recharged and refreshed–ready to take Do Not Mail’s resolution strategy to the next level.
Thanks to everyone who worked to make the event–and the campaign–a success!
Great news for the movement to take back our mailboxes: Today the Seattle City Council approved a resolution (8 to 1) calling for a Do Not Mail registry in the state of Washington! Much like the national Do Not Call registry, a Do Not Mail registry would allow consumers a free, effective way to opt out of any direct mailings that they don’t want.
Growing up in the 80s and 90s, stamp collecting was already becoming a somewhat retro hobby. But I do remember that it seemed like a big deal in 1993 when the Elvis stamps came out in 1993. I wasn’t completely sure why.
On Monday 
