The mailers are, through an agent (the USPS), puitting unsolicdited trash in/on my *property. How is this any different (in law) from me egging their corporate offices or dumping trash on their corporate landscaped grounds?
Do I, as a class, have any legal means of action against the perps?
*Your mail slot/mail box is yours, not the post office’s. Only the right of use belongs to them.
I think.
Peace,
mangeorge
Strickly speaking are they putting things on your property? It used to be that the mail box, once installed, was under the control of the Post Office.
The mailer isn’t putting anything on your property. The US Postal Service is.
And how would you make it illegal to mail something?
I think calling the USPS the mailer’s agent is stretching it.
There are way too many open questions here although I know what you are saying. They aren’t putting mail on your landscaped lawn, It is going in your mailbox. More importantly, what is junk mail? I get lots of catalogs and assorted other things that I like. I suppose the ones that I don’t want would be the junk mail but how do you define that? Should we have an “opt-in” mail policy where postal carriers have to consult a list of approved senders before they give something to you? Junk mail subsidises regular mail and keeps the U.S. Postal Service (a quasi-private organization) healthy financially.
And yes, the USPS owns the mailbox and even the slot in your front door, although I’m not sure the USPS will deliver mail to your door any more.
Cite Scroll down to December 17, 2005.
I happen to have a mail slot in my door so the mail lands on my floor. But that in itself makes no difference, as the slot is effectively the same as a mailbox.
The USPS is an agent of the mailers, as are UPS and Fedex at all. That’s why none are required to answer to the recipient. But I’m not asking that the delivery agencies be responsible for the content of the mail, but that the mailers do. They should ask to send us this stuff. Most online services do ask permission via a check box. Often you have to uncheck the box, but I don’t have a real problem with that.
A lot of this junk mail has information that compels me to shred it bafore putting it in the (recycle) trash. These mailings are huge waste of resources. Huge!
What makes it “trash” is the fact that it’s unsolicited. The same as if I “give” them a free egg on their front door. Or pay another to do it.
Personal mail, bills, periodicals, catalogs and all that are items that, one way or another, I’ve okayed.
Just to be clear, I’m complaining about the material (paper) the information is on, not the information itself. I shouldn’t be required to handle it.
Junk mail isn’t illegal because…
It pays the bills for the USPS. You don’t.
It is economically self-limiting. The balance of expense associated with junk mail lays with the sender, not the receiver. Junk faxes are illegal because they do not meet this criteria.
Lawmakers couldn’t agree on a definition of “junk mail” that didn’t also include their campaign mailers.
No enough people deal with it long enough at any one time to ponder how much accumulated money and effort is wasted dealing with it.
BTW, whether you or the USPS owns the mailbox and who it is an “agent” of is a side issue. How about the unsolicited “community newspapers” and landscaper solicitations left on your driveway, and ad circulars from the local pizza delivery place that are hung on your door? Those are definitely being deposited directly on your property by the organization themselves. That isn’t illegal either. Like it or not, unsolicited advertisers have a certain latitude to push their messages on your space.
But a “post no bills” notice forbids them to leave these solicitations. I don’t know about newspapers, which may have special rights.
The same sign has no message for the postal worker. Same goes for a closed gate.
A significant difficulty lies in differentiating between junk mail and other. You suggest that the difference is lack of solicitation, but a law banning unsolicited mail would cover some things you’d definitely want to receive. I’m not saying the difficulties of defining what you want to prohibit are insurmountable, but they are difficult enough that, when combined with the political issues 1010011010 outlines, you have an answer to your question.
As to the difference between junk mail and egging, there are two. Firstly, nobody wants to be egged but a surprising number of people not including you or I like junk mail. Secondly you egg with an intent to annoy, they mail junk with intent to get sales.
Is there a “do not mail” list like the “do not call” list?
The only justification by the OP for outlawing junk mail was that it was being deposited on his property.
Slight hijack: Are you required to have a mailbox (or more generally, mail service) associated with your residence? If I decided I could live without USPS mail completely (anyone sending me something would have to use a commercial courier), could I do that?
You can use this service for five years with a registration fee of $1.
It could also result in 1st Ad issue. But anywahy- I don;t get the big deal about “junk mail”. Of all the Spam out there it is far and away the least annoying. You can open it or not, and make the choice at your leisure. It doesn’t interrupt TV or dinner like Phone calls, it doesn’t come with Spyware like some Spam, and it doesn’t cost you money like junk faxes.
Harmless. And it makes everyone’s 1st class mail a bit cheaper. Sounds good to me.
This reminds me of another slight hijack: what about the people who leave flyers under the wiper blade of my car? Those annoy me to no end, and it is also a case where they are most certainly putting something on, and actually manipulating my property (I presume they have to lift the blade a little to stick it under there).
Could that possibly be illegal?
Makes sending packages cheaper too. I use shredded junk mail for packing material.
Those unsolicited “community newspapers”? I work for one. As a matter of company policy, if someone asks us to stop delivering it to their house, we comply.
As for junk mail–That makes up most of the USPS’s business these days. With the advent of e-mail and UPS/FedEx, pretty much all the mail I get these days is bills and junk mail. I haven’t gotten a chatty letter from a friend across the country in years. And while the five or six bills I get per month are five or six too many in my view, I’m not ready to pull the plug on the USPS just yet; I don;t think they could exist delivering nothing but utility bills and bank statements.
From my understanding of the USPS’s finances (via my postal worker husband and his work-related newsletters), “junk mail” is the majority of the money they take in, including catalog mailings. If there was an “opt-in” situation for commercial mailers, I suspect either the USPS would go bankrupt, or the cost of first-class letters and packages would skyrocket.
If you want to get rid of junk mail for good, get onto the available opt-out services, and only ever do business with people who don’t share your address. This might be difficult for some people, as I’ve had the experience of the university I went to, a workplace or two, and at least one town government doing this.
Given the choice between an unsourced, two-paragraph item and GFactor’s exhaustively researched report on the same subject, I’m going to believe the latter. Sorry.
So your mailbox, and my floor, are indeed private property. Makes sense, eh?
I get a lot of those “pre-approved” credit card requests which could be returned to the cc company and a card would be issued, causing me at least a lot of hassle.