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.
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.
