Jail mail: Beverly Dennis, an Ohio grandmother, received a survey in the mail promising coupons if she completed and returned it. So, she did. The survey was from Metromail , a firm that collects personal data and sells it to junk mailers. Due to the cheap prison labor rates, the Texas prison system got the job of entering her data (and that of thousands of other survey subjects) into Metromail's massive database.

Beverly's survey got into the hands of a convicted rapist and burglar doing time in Huntsville Texas. The rapist used her personal data to write her a letter, offering to make her sexual fantasies come true. It included, "If you are into sixty-nine, then I am definitely game", and offered "to be there to rub in your Neutrogena", and "maybe later, I can get over to see you."

Drug mail: In 2002, Walgreens drug stores sent junk mail containing a month's supply of Prozac to surprised and appalled residents.  An accompanying letter said, ''We are very excited to be able to offer you a more convenient way to take your antidepressant medication,'' One resident who got the unsolicited Prozac said, ''If my grandchildren were there and they got a hold of this little package, they would have thought it was candy.'' A lawsuit filed against Walgreens, concerning the junk mailing of this potent drug, states the resident did not have a Prozac prescription.

Mailing lists: Do you subscribe to Time Magazine, donate to the Arthritis Foundation or shop at PetsMart? If so, your name and address are likely sold to junk mailers. But these aren't the only outfits selling your privacy. Here are a couple webpages, describing more private data that is sold and who sells it.  Medical - Personal
 
The Supreme Court heard a case known as Rowan v. U.S. Post Office, where junk mailers tried to reverse a law requiring them to abide by a person's request to not receive sexually provocative ads. They claimed the law violated their free speech. The Court didn't buy it, saying "[S]ufficient measure of individual autonomy must survive to permit every householder to exercise control over unwanted mail". The court's rulings have included other gems as well.

The law (39 USC §3008) lets anyone get a prohibitory order against a junk mailer that advertises anything the addressee considers to be sexually provocative. To implement the law (which can be used to stop a broad range of junk mail) you should understand the law's implications. A specific form (PS1500) must be used.

Also, a postal regulation (DMM 508 - 1.1.2) enables folks to notify the post office (in writing) that it is not to deliver mail from specific mailers or generically addressed mail such as to "Current Resident" or "Occupant".

Members of Private Citizen, Inc., who join to Cut Junk Mail receive the necessary forms to implement both the law and regulation described above. We will also contact the largest junk mail firms, telling them to remove you from their lists, and include you in a petition regularly send to Congress, asking for legal limits on junk mail.

Tell Congress: With the creation of the national do-not-call list, more firms are using junk mail. Congress is becoming sensitive to the privacy abusive practices of the direct marketing industry. With some prodding, Congress may draft legislation creating a national do-not-mail list (similar to the do-not-call list). But that requires YOU to write your congressional representative in Washington.

Now, you have an easy way to do that. Click here to go to our webpage with suggested text for your letter and a link to your representative's office. 

The junk mail industry is out of control: Essentially, they admit it. They may make soothing claims to the public and Congress, but when they talk to each other about their intolerable business practices, the direct marketing industry can be quite candid . 

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has about 5,000 members, including hundreds of America's largest businesses. It is also the nation's most powerful pro-junk mail lobby. In 1990, the DMA's president said, "The goal of the DMA is to discover and to thwart possible government regulation, and we have done it." One way the DMA fights government regulation is to claim that junk mailers regulate themselves.

To that end, the DMA created the Mail Preference Service (MPS) - a list for folks to register their name, address and unwillingness to get junk mail.  When the DMA created a similar list concerning junk calls - the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) - it said, " The TPS will give consumers an alternative to running to their legislators for protection. We must develop a strong self-regulatory posture if we are going to prevent legislation. " Some reasons for the MPS's similar and continuing failure to limit junk mail are noted here .

And that's all it is: posturing.  So much posturing that Congress and the Federal Trade Commission created a national-do-not-call list because of the TPS's spectacular failure in limiting junk calls.

The American public should not be confronted with the obstinance and irresponsibility of junk mailers. There 'oughta be a law' - an effective law - to substantially limit unwanted junk mail. Your participation in Cut Junk Mail Month and a note to your Congressional Representative will help bring that law about.