10 November 2006 - How do Americans stop junk mail? Unfortunately, the answer is 'not'.
On 11 March 2003 President George Bush signed the Do-Not-Call Implementation Act of 2003 and in October of the same year the Do Not Call register was first enforced. The National Do Not Call Registery aims to reduce the number of telemarketing calls people receive and is the equivalent of the Telephone Preference Service in the UK. People can add their phone number to the Do Not Call Registery, after which most, but not all, telemarketing calls will stop.
Since 2003 the Do Not Call Registry has received more than 125 million telephone numbers from people who do not want their contact information sold to telemarketers. However, after three years Americans are still waiting for a companion registry in order to reduce the quantity of unwanted junk mail from direct mailers. Bills aiming to reduce junk mail have been introduced in Missouri, Illinois, New York and California, but on a national level little has happened.
The Center for a New American Dream is campaigning to create a national Do Not Junk Opt-Out Registry that is modeled after the Do Not Call Registry.
The campaign set up by the Center for a New American Dream is straightforward. All direct mailers will have to remove your name and address from their lists if you make the proper request. However, contacting American Direct Marketing Association will not get someone's name removed from all direct mail lists. New American Dream has therefore set up its own service. Through their website people can create automatically generated forms which will remove their name from some of the major junk mail lists.
However, this will only reduce the amount of junk people receive. At present there isn't a way to remove yourself from all lists in the United States. By registering with New American Dream people can therefore en passant also sign a petition calling on the American Congress to create a national Do Not Junk registry modeled after the Do Not Call registry.
Steven Krieger, coordinator for the Center for a New American Dream, thinks no junk mail opt out has been given to American citizens because of an obsession with freedom of speech. On emagazine.com Mr Krieger said: "I'm always amazed and appreciative when people contact me about our Do Not Junk campaign because they are concerned that we are intruding on the direct mailers' freedom of speech […]. However, in 1970, the Supreme Court ruled in Rowan vs. US Postal Service that "a mailer's right to communicate must stop at the mailbox of an unreceptive addressee." Although everyone has the freedom of speech, there is no requirement to listen."
In Britain the website www.itsmypost.com was recently launched. Itsmypost.com offers a service similar to the campaign of the Center for a New American Dream. People can register with itsmypost.com, after which request to remove your name from mailing lists are sent to up to a hundred companies.