
You shouldn't have to share your address - reesespuffs
http://codyromano.com/you-shouldnt-have-to-share-your-address/
======
jacalata
Now explain how Amazon Fresh/Amazon Now will work with that.

~~~
dalke
Or how to send mail internationally.

Or how to pay or even estimate postage if there are distance-dependent costs.

Or how to send mail to me when I'm renting a vacation home for a few weeks.

Or how to presort bulk mails for cheaper postal rates.

Or send mail to the current occupier of a house when the name isn't known.
(Obvious ones include advertisements, political mailings, an municipal fee
notices.)

~~~
lkbm
> Or how to send mail internationally.

Yes, this will only work in areas where it's implemented.

> Or how to pay or even estimate postage if there are distance-dependent
> costs.

Presumably you'd include this in the USPS API, which knows your region. I
already have to go to Easypost to determine shipping cost.

> Or how to send mail to me when I'm renting a vacation home for a few weeks.

What? This systems makes that _much_ easier, because the changes are
centralized. Instead of updating my address on Amazon, eBay, and everywhere
else that ships, I just update the USPS address.

> Or how to presort bulk mails for cheaper postal rates.

I'm not clear on why that gives cheaper rates these days. Unless your mailing
addresses are hand-written, the USPS should be able to mass sort at
essentially zero-cost.

> Or send mail to the current occupier of a house when the name isn't known.
> (Obvious ones include advertisements, political mailings, an municipal fee
> notices.)

Traditional addresses would obviously still exist--this is specifically a
system of snail mail aliasing. If you don't want to hit a specific person, you
could still use those addresses for mailing.

~~~
dalke
> where it's implemented

So how does mail cross the boundary? Assume the US has the system but Canada
does not. How will someone from Canada send mail to a US address? More
specifically, if you buy something from Amazon, and it's actually delivered
from a Canadian shipper, how does the shipper know the address if you've only
given Amazon your alias?

Does that mean this system would restrict Amazon, eBay, etc. to only work with
places which are party to the new system?

> I already have to go to Easypost to determine shipping cost

I assume you rarely ship things. I used to help send book around the US. It's
media mail. We had a scale, and a price list. We weighed the books, put on the
right number of stamps, and dropped the mail off at the post office.

There was no "API". There was no need to go elsewhere to weigh the books.

How many similar systems will break with this proposal?

> _much_ easier

No, it doesn't. Right now I only need to know the address to have people send
things to me. With this proposal, I have to register my mailing address.

To give a case in point, last December I did a lot of traveling. I went to CA,
NM, OK, and FL. I live in Sweden.

In NM my friend in CA pointed out I left my coat there. I asked her to send it
to me in OK, where I would be visiting family, as there might not be time for
the coat to get to me in NM. I knew the address of where I was driving to in
OK, so it was easy to give her that address. Add it's easy to find zip code
for an address.

Otherwise, I either 1) need to get the special shipping code for my relative
in OK, or 2) register a one-off mailing code with the USPS. (Because I do
_not_ want any of my other addresses updated.)

Both are more complicated than putting c/o along with the street address.

> I just update the USPS address.

Again, my case was a one-off event. Consider a different problem, which is the
question of how to disentangle addresses.

Suppose I've been married and living in the same place for 25 years. We've
registered everything on the same mail code, including Amazon, eBay, credit
card notices, bank statements, mortgage statements. Now me and my spouse have
decided to celebrate our silver anniversary by living in Hawaii for two
months.

While in Hawaii, we still want to use Amazon. But our son, who lives next
door, will handle any bills or other things. So we want to change the address
for Amazon _ONLY_.

How do we do that? I can't just update the USPS address because everything
will be routed to Hawaii, which I don't want.

Nor can I tell USPS that when Amazon sends to special code XYZ then to instead
ship to an address in Hilo.

> I'm not clear on why that gives cheaper rates these days

You don't have to be "clear", only accept that it's true. A DuckDuckGo for
"presorted mail" points me to
[http://pe.usps.com/businessmail101/sorting/presortingMail.ht...](http://pe.usps.com/businessmail101/sorting/presortingMail.htm)
which says "Many mailers choose to presort their mail because it results in
lower postage. Because you're doing some of the work, it costs the Postal
Service less money to process and deliver those pieces of mail. We pass that
savings on to you in the form of commercial postage prices. Basically,
"presorting" means grouping mail by ZIP Code."

> the USPS should be able to mass sort

Your beliefs about the postal system do not appear to be correct, nor have
been correct for decades.

> this is specifically a system of snail mail aliasing

And a system which introduces a lot of headaches for little gain.

How do I change an alias? Do I go online? What if it's been 10 years and I've
forgotten the account details? Do I go to the post office to get access again?
Can my spouse change the information? Can I designate someone else, like my
lawyer, to change it? How safe is it from identity fraud? What is the legal
method of recovering from fraud?

What level of privacy will there be on the alias? Can companies share or sell
the information? Can the alias-to-physical address be subpoenad? Is the
subpoena filed in state or federal court? Does the other side get to file an
objection before that information is released?

~~~
lkbm
> How will someone from Canada send mail to a US address?

Can't the USPS translates it when it hits their jurisdiction? The Canadian
post isn't delivering mail in the US. The USPS is.

> We had a scale, and a price list.

If you're selling on Amazon, replace your price list with typing the address
into Amazon and receiving a response. If you're selling on your own, you can
collect traditional addresses and use those.

> While in Hawaii, we still want to use Amazon. But our son, who lives next
> door, will handle any bills or other things. So we want to change the
> address for Amazon ONLY. > How do we do that? I can't just update the USPS
> address because everything will be routed to Hawaii, which I don't want. >
> Nor can I tell USPS that when Amazon sends to special code XYZ then to
> instead ship to an address in Hilo.

Sounds like in that case the proposed system is as bad as what we currently
have--you still have to update things on a mailer-by-mailer basis. That's
annoying, but it's exactly the same as what we have right now. In some cases
this is not an improvement, and in other cases it's better so...

> You don't have to be "clear", only accept that it's true.

No, I have to accept that it _should_ be true. If it's an anachronism of days
past, losing it is good. Even if it's not, it's not a given that the tradeoff
isn't very much worth it.

> How do I change an alias? Do I go online? What if it's been 10 years and
> I've forgotten the account details? Do I go to the post office to get access
> again? Can my spouse change the information? Can I designate someone else,
> like my lawyer, to change it? How safe is it from identity fraud? What is
> the legal method of recovering from fraud?

We currently have mail forwarding. Copy that and streamline it.

> What level of privacy will there be on the alias? Can companies share or
> sell the information? Can the alias-to-physical address be subpoenad? Is the
> subpoena filed in state or federal court? Does the other side get to file an
> objection before that information is released?

Yup. It will take time to nail down all the details of how this would work.
I'm certainly not arguing against that, so I'm not sure what this whole thread
is about at this point.

