

Ask HN: Unsolicited snail mail? - mapattack

i&#x27;ve done the obvious--written to the DMA, clearinghouses, etc... and seen a temporary lull in crap clouding my physical mailbox, but then it seems to spike as i, like any person, buys shit, which seems to be an ok to resell my contact info all over again.<p>PaperKarma makes me feel better (not sure how well it works), but this seems to be a recursive loop&#x2F;Sisyphean task.<p>Of particular concern are local circulars published by RedPlum.com and others. Often they have &quot;current occupant&quot; with all apartments in my building or similar or worse--no address block at all, which means what--the Safeway circulars show up in bulk at my local USPS sorting center and get stuffed into bags for distro?<p>I have taped notices in my mailbox notifying the postman I wish to not receive any unsolicited mail, but that doesn&#x27;t do anything (in an ongoing loop with my mailman where I put unaddressed circulars into the mail drop in our building and they magically appear back in my mailbox).<p>Obviously the consumer (or one could say environmental or sanity) protection laws aren&#x27;t meaningful for PRINT materials; they are actually more impactful for electronic media.<p>I do know that bulk mail gets discounted rate by accepting all returned mail, which also means I could attach a brick&#x2F;lead weight to every piece of crap mail and it would be returned to sender, and sender charged. That&#x27;s impactful if millions of americans do so, but i&#x27;m not looking to make a grass roots &quot;send a tire to Safeway&quot; campaign.<p>On first amendment grounds, do I not have negative freedoms (freedom FROM this kind of crap)? Other countries, like Holland, have sound solutions but no way that reasonableness will work here.
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pwg
> I have taped notices in my mailbox notifying the postman I wish to not
> receive any unsolicited mail

This will do no good. The postman (actually, the whole postal service) is
simply a "delivery" service. They have no rights to "edit" what they deliver
(within reason, hazardous materials being one), which is as it should be, and
why your request does no good.

> which also means I could attach a brick/lead weight to every piece of crap
> mail and it would be returned to sender, and sender charged

No longer works, too many tried it:
[http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/566/can-i-mail-a-
br...](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/566/can-i-mail-a-brick-back-
to-a-junk-mail-firm-using-the-business-reply-envelope)

"According to rule 917.243(b) in the Domestic Mail Manual, when a business
reply card is "improperly used as a label" — e.g., when it's affixed to a
brick — the item so labeled may be treated as "waste." That means the post
office can toss it in the trash without further ado."

While it is a subtle difference, at least with physical paper mail, the
advertiser had to pay to produce and have shipped the item. With email spam,
you have to pay for the privilege of receiving the email spam. So one thing to
do is just keep your recycle bin handy, and just dump the unwanted items in
the recycle bin.

