
The United States Postal Service Will Now Email You Your Mail - esalazar
http://qz.com/566668/the-united-states-postal-service-will-now-email-you-your-mail/
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jlgaddis
I would pay for this, at times. All of my mail is delivered to my box at a
post office about 15 minutes from my home. I normally only check it once every
week or two. When I'm expecting something important, however, I may make a
trip there once a day for a few days in a row until it arrives.

I wouldn't pay for it all the time as 98% of what I receive isn't really
"time-sensitive" or all that important (mostly it's just bills that I pay
online anyways), but for those times like I mentioned above I'd gladly pay a
few bucks for the service.

Of course, since it's not unusual for me to end up with other people's mail in
my mailbox, I'm expecting there to be some "privacy violations" that come out
of this as well.

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ikeboy
There's no privacy violations that happen that wouldn't have happened
otherwise, right? If it was in your mail, you had access anyway.

~~~
jlgaddis
They could accidentally send my images to you but still deliver my mail
correctly.

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ghshephard
I've had pretty much all my mail _contents_ scanned for me since 1999. It's a
great service - I can go anywhere in the world, and never worry about a bill,
or a charge, or change in terms of services that get mailed to me. Plus,
they'll forward any "hard items" (like credit cards) to a physical mailbox
(which, in my case, is a pobox that will forward anything that arrives to
whatever address I happen to be in the world.)

So - all my mail goes to Sioux Falls South Dakota, which then gets scanned
(and presumably shredded), and then hard items are re-mailed to Mountain View,
which then, on a monthly basis or so, get re-mailed again to Singapore (where
I currently am).

It only took the USPS 16 years to offer the scan/email service for the
_envelope_ \- it will be interesting to see when they'll scan/email the
_contents_.

~~~
freakz
Can you post the services you use?

~~~
ghshephard
paytrust.com for the scanning. UPS Store at 650 Castro for re-mail to
Singapore

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acafourek
There was a startup called Outbox awhile back that was trying to be a proxy
service for physical mail- have your mail forwarded to them (or maybe they
picked it up manually?) and they digitized it for you. This idea from USPS
isn't quite that but a good step in the right direction. Super handy for more
transient urban millennials at least.

~~~
astrange
There's one running now called Virtual Post Mail.

~~~
RightWingRabble
Earth Class Mail does it too.

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cstuder
The Swiss post office calls this service "E-Post office":
[https://www.post.ch/en/private/receiving-mail/private-
specif...](https://www.post.ch/en/private/receiving-mail/private-specify-
receipt-location/e-post-office)

I've never tried it, but the descriptions sounds great: You receive a
notification whenever you get a letter and can then decide, whether to get the
letter physically delivered or opened & scanned. With automatic filtering for
later letters from the same address.

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doe88
It should cost almost nothing to implement as they already doing it for law
enforcement anyway. And it is also an indirect method for them of informing
the general public that they have the capacity of doing it and therefore it
must not come to a surprise if it is also forwarded @fbi. Maybe in their mind
it's a way of declining moral responsibility for their spying. And likewise
for federal governement as it is certainly endorsed (if not suggested) by
them.

~~~
pilsetnieks
Are you really suggesting that the USPS is opening all letters sent through
them, scanning their contents and passing it all on to law enforcement? It's a
serious allegation without any proof.

If I recall correctly, they are actually scanning the outside of the letter
which gets you senders, recipients, sending time (the metadata, so to speak.)
Which isn't very nice but also not as brazen as opening and resealing letters
KGB-style.

~~~
cm2187
What I don't understand is how the US got not to interpret emails as an
equivalent to a letter, and how the secrecy of correspondence that applies to
mail didn't extend to emails. As you say, opening and resealing letters is
"KGB style", but that's exactly what they do with emails. Even USPS is not
allowed to open your mail.

~~~
icebraining
The argument was that emails are more like postcards, since they aren't
"sealed" and you "share" their contents with the provider. That said, I
believe the sixth circuit agreed with you in _United States v. Warshak_ , in
2010. Of course, LE is trying its best to read that ruling in the most narrow
way possible.

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mei0Iesh
Digital postal mail:

* [http://www.virtualpostmail.com/](http://www.virtualpostmail.com/)

* [https://www.postscanmail.com/](https://www.postscanmail.com/)

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Raphael
The link to sign up for Informed Delivery Notification just goes to the
preferences page. I was only able to opt into My USPS (package tracking), as
well as choose to receive communications from USPS.

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pavement
There's a small part of me that feels as though this might've been something
that should have happened maybe as early as 1990, but didn't, somehow.

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Animats
Now if only you could look at the online envelope images and mark them "spam",
"open and scan contents", or "deliver unopened".

~~~
geomark
Yeah, that's what the mail forwarding services do, like the one I use. Not
free of course. But people like me would pay the USPS for the service if they
could match what private mail forwarders do. One advantage is you wouldn't
have to do the notarized form for authorization to receive mail. That can be a
major pain if you are living outside the US in a country that is not a member
of the Apostille Convention, meaning it doesn't have real notaries.

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zhte415
A lot of business services companies, providing a registered address, etc, do
this (for individuals, brass-plate overseas offices, or individuals that don't
want their own address known). It costs around GBP 90 for a London (UK)
registered address and unlimited mail forwarding (physical or scanned email).

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cJ0th
Haha, this is what Jerry Seinfeld once jokingly proposed when he was mocking
the postal service.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xR...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xR1ckgXN8G0#t=300)

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gglitch
I would definitely pay for this if it replaced physical junk mail with scans.
I'd pay even more if it just went ahead and deleted all junk mail. I'd pay a
similar amount to...unsubscribe from junk mail.

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austinstorm
SO many people have tried this, and the USPS has shut them down. Either the
USPS will do it or no one will, because they won't allow competition.

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smegel
_Endorsed by the NSA_

Hmmm...

~~~
rgbrenner
it's just pictures of the front outside of the envelope. that part is not
private, and the usps already can -- and does -- provide that to law
enforcement if they request it. So this does not change anything.

