Stopping addressed junk mail can be a real struggle. Once your name and addressed are being traded by anonymous list brokers your personal details will appear on numerous junk mail lists. Contrary to popular believe, the Mailing Preference Service isn't going to magically put a stop to this. To stop addressed junk mail you usually need send data protection notices to individual junk mailers. This is a rather labour-intensive approach. In short, preventing junk mail by routinely ticking opt-out boxes is one of the best things you can do to beat the junk mailers. If they don't know you exists they won't target you.

In general, you should be careful who you give your name and address to. Never respond to unsolicited mailings, including appeals from charities, and don't take part in competitions and surveys unless you're confident your personal details will not be added to a junk mail database.

If you have registered with the Mailing Preference Service and have asked an organisation to send you advertisements, you will receive mailings from that organisation. Giving permission to an individual organisation overrides a registration with the opt-out scheme for addressed junk mail. This goes a long way to explain why there are so many tick boxes around and why they're always so tiny and difficult to find.

If you receive unsolicited mail from a specific organisation despite being registered with the Mailing Preference Service, you might have forgotten to tick a box somewhere. To stop the mailings you need to contact the sender directly and ask to be removed from its mailing list. If you send the organisation a so-called 'data protection notice' it is legally obliged to do so.

The Mailing Preference Service can prevent junk mail from 'third parties'. If a member of the Direct Marketing Association buys a junk mail list it has to check if the people on that list are registered with the opt-out scheme. Only members of the Direct Marketing Association have to do this, and so the Mailing Preference Service can't prevent your personal details being used as a commodity completely.

Although it's only fair that organisations try to keep in touch with people, the problem with tick boxes is that they're usually difficult to find and always too small. As a result many people consent to having their personal details added to junk mail databases unwittingly.

The solution is simple; the opt-out box needs to be replaced with an opt-in box. At the moment it's assumed that you want to receive 'further information' and 'special offers' every time you sign a guarantee card, register with an online service or donate money to a charity. The only way to opt out is by searching the small print for the opt-out box. This is an aggressive form of marketing that undermines what could be a good system.

Replace opt-out boxes with opt-in boxes and you'll find that suddenly tick boxes are no longer hidden. Which can only be a good thing. Both the Direct Marketing Association and Royal Mail are always deeply concerned about people making an 'informed decision' about registering with opt-out schemes, so why not show the same concern when it comes to opting in to receiving unsolicited mail? It's interesting to note that the Direct Marketing Association estimates that three in four people always tick opt-out boxes that can prevent junk mail. If the vast majority of people routinely tick opt-out boxes then 'opted out' really ought to be the default option. This would prevent people make an uninformed decision about opting in to receiving advertisements.

Stop Junk Mail is currently running a petition for a ban on opt-out boxes. For more information and/or to put your name to the petition, please see the Petitions page.