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USPS To Offer Free E-Mail
RobHornick writes: "Supposedly, the US Postal Service is going to begin offering free e-mail addresses to all 120 million of the nation's residential addresses. MSNBC thinks it could be 'the most efficient spam delivery tool ever created.' I don't know, but their business model certainly seems like it would be selling the addresses to mass-marketers, who probably wouldn't mind not having to pay 33 cents per letter." I love programs run by the government the signing up for which "would be strictly voluntary." But don't worry about the security of that data or any privacy implications: Deputy Postmaster General John Nolan says "We'll be as secure, or more secure, than other sites in terms of the privacy people can expect from us."
I LOVE THIS IDEA! There's nothing like the possibility of having an email address like:
8 @usps.gov
303_north_seminary_avenue_park_ridge_il_60068-304
Finally, all my dreams of owning an email address have come true!
-- BlueCalx | http://nickd.org/
OK, since this article is more than an hour old, I guess being moderated up is out of the question. So for those of you browsing low:
First, this idea is silly and relatively useless. The private sector operates something similar and better. All the post office can add is a mechanism which other regulations will glom onto until it becomes your mandatory official email address-- a little like what has happened with Social Security numbers.
Second, the post office has NO interest in stopping spam. For one thing, their paper-mail revenue stream isn't supported by those silly first-class stamps you've been buying. It is supported by third class 'business mail' aka junk mail. Good side: you get cheap postal mail. Bad side: you get a ream of banner ads in your mailbox every week.
Third, the government's problem all along has been a weakness of adapting to innovation. They come up with this great paper plan, and five months into it, as circumstances change, the plan ends up solidifying. Within a year or two, the whole system is out of date. I've worked with government agencies and contractors in the past; this is how it has always gone.
Finally, and most importantly, if the post office really wants to do something good, they should create a name server system for postal addresses. IE abstract the physical address away from the resident. So I just write "CmdrTaco, 80486DX" on the envelope, plop down a stamp, and it goes to Commander Taco, whereever his physical address might be . Do that, and right there you would only need one change of address card, and everyone who uses your EasyCode would automatically be updated. People who need a physical address can always still use that. You could update it over the web or at a post office if people are really worried about security.
Sadly, the post office is doing what other people do just fine already, and not coming up with a way to stay relevent. Dare I wonder if we will soon even need a USPS?
My father works for the USPS, and there's a few things I've learned about how mail advertisements work and how this e-mail system will work.
The USPS will not be revealing ANY information in your usps.gov e-mail address. You will have the opportunity to choose what ID you want to use for your e-mail, although the ask that you use your name in some way rather than something like pornstar@usps.gov.
Mail bombs? Early morning phone calls? How do you get that? If some Joe Smoe has some vandetta against you and he knows your e-mail address does NOT mean he's going to know your physical address. Look at his options:
1) You set up your usps.gov mail to forward mail to some hotmail account. So you get e-mails. Darn. Delete them. That could happen with any e-mail account anyway.
2) You receive in paper form all your usps.gov e-mail. It's going to cost him 41 cents per message. Why would he pay 41 cents to send you threatening? Even if he did, it's got a return address. Fake? Not likely, because he had to pay 41 cents to send that mail. Trust me, you'll have a way to trace him.
3) Even if the letter is threatening, it's a federal offense to send threatening mail, and whoever sent the mail will have an identity. And the USPS has quite a large, nation-wide fraud center that is being equipped to deal with those kinds of issues.
And, no matter how he sends it, whether from his computer or physically going to the post office to mail the message, he can't get anything more than your name from the post office. They aren't allowed by federal law to reveal any private information such as your phone #, SS#, etc.
And if you're worried about spam, don't be. It costs about 21 cents per letter for advertisers to send you a two page message via snail mail (2 cents for the paper and envelope, 6 cents labor to print the form letter, stuff it, and print the envelope, and 13 cents for bulk-rate mailing), which is still quite cheaper than 41 cents to mail a two page message via USPS e-mail. And for credit card companies who have to mail all those pamphlets and forms in the message? It would take about 9 pages of e-mail ASCII text to reveal all the information they're required to disclose for a credit card application, which will cost them around, I believe, 60 cents, to send via USPS e-mail, much more than to send snail-mail.
Oh, and for the highly paranoid, no one, neither businesses nor an everyday Joe Smoe, will just be able to walk into the USPS and say "Hey, I got this e-mail address of someone, could you please give me his name/snail address/phone number please?"
"Excuse me, sir? Did you send this spam? Please come with us..."
That would make me happy.
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So now the jargon will be "He's gone Postal Sysadmin".
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