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According to the latest data (September 2007), 4,045,211 households have registered with the Mailing Preference Service (MPS). That is roughly 15 per cent of all British households.
Although Royal Mail does not release figures about its 'door-to-door opt-out' – the main preference system for unaddressed junk mail - we have been told by a manager of Royal Mail's door-to-door team that less than 0.5 per cent of households is currently opted out of receiving unaddressed items delivered by the postman.
The 'Your Choice' opt-out scheme for unaddressed junk mail has just been launched and it is too early to say how many people are using this opt-out.
There are few statistics available about opt-out boxes people can tick if they do not want an organisation to send them advertising mail. The Direct Mail Information Services (DMIS) has done research into how likely different social groups are to notice opt-out boxes, which in itself is an interesting fact. Unfortunately, their findings have not published in great detail. The DMIS 'Letterbox Factfile 2006' only mentions that people in the higher social grades are more likely than average to notice opt-out boxes.
The same research showed that upper class people are more likely to use opt-out boxes to prevent junk mail. Again, detailed statistics were not made public.