Three years after a Do Not Call Registery was introduced in the United States there still is no 'Do Not Junk' Registry. The Center for a New American Dream is hoping to change things.

In March 2003 President George Bush signed the Do-Not-Call Implementation Act, and in October of the same year the National Do Not Call register was first enforced. The registery is the equivalent of the Telephone Preference Service in the UK; it allows Americans to opt out of receiving unwanted sales calls.

The registery is hugely popular. To date, more than 125 million telephone numbers have been registered with the service. It is therefore all the more surprising that Americans are still waiting for a companion registry that can help reduce unwanted junk mail. Legislation aiming to reduce junk mail have been introduced in Missouri, Illinois, New York and California, but on a national level little has happened.

No requirement to listen

The Center for a New American Dream is hoping to give the campaign for a national Do Not Junk Registry a boost. Via the organisation's website people can create automatically generated forms which they can send to individual junk mailers to have their details removed from junk mail lists. While doing so they can en passant sign a petition calling on the American Congress to create an opt-out scheme for junk mail.

Steven Krieger, co-ordinator for the Center for a New American Dream, thinks the reason why America doesn't have a Do Not Junk Registry yet is because of the country's preoccupation with freedom of speech. On emagazine.com Mr Krieger wrote earlier this month that he is "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." The argument is invalid, says Krieger: "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 itsmypost.com was launched recently. Via the website people can remove their personal details from individual junk mail lists by generating data protection notices which can be send to individual junk mailers. However, the service is run on a strictly commercial basis.

Links

• Center for a New American Dream (newdream.org)
• Junk mail meets democracy: how to stop the flow (emagazine.com)