Get the 'Do Not Mail' registry started

Love the Do Not Call Registry? Wish you had a similar one for junk mail?

The good people at ForestEthics have gotten the battle against junk mail started with a petition -- addressed to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- calling for a Do Not Mail registry.

Junk mail's not just a daily annoyance. The unwanted stuff destroys forests and contributes to global warming. Junk mail also tends to create an eyesore in urban neighborhoods; I see supermarket fliers littering roads and alleyways all the time.

So sign the Do Not Mail registry petition. This campaign also has a tool to help you get off junk mail lists. However, the app basically asks for your contact info, then puts that info into a 9-page PDF -- each page being a letter to a different address registry -- for you to print and mail off. While somewhat handy, this app is oddly mail-and-paper intensive -- and will put you back at least a few bucks in postage costs.

To help you do this more cheaply and easily, I'll put up more posts today about what you can do to de-junk mail NOW without mailing a thing.

Comments

[Kate]

The Direct Marketing Association has a service that has cut way, way down on the junk mail I receive.

https://www.dmachoice.org/MPS/mps_consumer_description.php

Best $1 I ever spent.

[Siel]

Getting off DMA's list electronically is actually free now :)

[Kate]

Great! Although it was still the best $1 I ever spent. :)

[Shaun Dakin]

The Do Not Mail idea is helpful and I applaud the effort by ForestEthics to save trees. However, phone calls, particularly political robo calls are particularly invasive of our privacy and reduce our quality of life. Mail does not wake you up during the day and night. Mail does not tie your phone lines up and prevent you from calling your doctor in case of an emergency.

I started a non-profit, non-partisan organization last year to combat intrusive robo-calls by using a voluntary, private sector solution: the Political Do Not Contact Registry. As a result I was asked to testify at the U.S. Senate 2.27.2008 along with N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper.

Our registry is similar to the federal government’s Do Not Call list. But to succeed it requires politicians who will honor the wishes of voters who’d rather not endure the endless robotic, political phone calls during campaign season.

Kansas Congresswoman Nancy Boyda has become the second member to sign our pledge this week. She has taken the pledge and agreed not to robo call constituents that sign up on the National Political Do Not Contact Registry at StopPoliticalCalls.org. We commend her leadership on this important consumer issue that impacts the privacy of all voters.

CA Voters’ phones will soon be ringing off the hook this Fall. Fed up voters can visit our web site at StopPoliticalCalls.org and add their names to our free Do Not Call registry. It’s time we give the political dialogue back to average, concerned citizens.

Shaun Dakin
Founder & CEO, the National Political Do Not Contact Registry
StopPoliticalCalls.org