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The door-to-door opt-out first hit the headlines in August 2006, when postman Roger Annies from Vale of Glamorgan was suspended after delivering a leaflet on his round advising people that it was possible to opt out of receiving unaddressed mail delivered by Royal Mail.
Before Mr Annies' controversial suspension hardly anyone knew about the existence of the door-to-door opt-out. It's fair to say that Royal Mail tried to keep the opt-out a secret; there wasn't even information about the opt-out on the Royal Mail website. But now every newspaper reported about the case. As a result of the affair, more than 200,000 people registered with the Mailing Preference Service in September 2006 alone. How many people opted out of Royal Mail door drops is unknown, but it might be noted that after the door-to-door opt-out became public knowledge, Royal Mail permanently closed the opt-out telephone number.
Mr Annies was eventually given a backroom job by Royal Mail, from which he later resigned to study environmental science.