Trade in your Junk Mail for Spam

QueueEhGuy writes "CNN is reporting that the Swedish Postal Service, Posten, is now offering a service where customers can choose to receive spam via a free, government run, service. Business are given the option of using this at a 25% discount from carrier delivered mail. For those of us with physical addresses, it raises an interesting question as to which one is less annoying, environmental benefits aside." Interesting step towards charging postage for email.

Comments

Correct link to Posten (and yes, in English)

[Troed]

Posten

Interesting

[Perianwyr Stormcrow]

If I choose to receive only spam, will my physical email box be free of physical bulkmail, then?

If so, that's a cool idea.

If not, where's the benefit?

I can't tell which is the case, as I do not read Swedish, and the link is just to the main page (this is what would happen in a world where "deep linking" is disallowed! Total contextual disconnection.)

If this were happening in America...

[RumGunner]

They could just save time and declare bankruptcy now. I read that article this morning.

Honestly, how do they expect people to react to this? "I can get spam from the government? Yippee!"

Re:E-Mail much less annoying

[st0rmshad0w]

Except you can't heat your home with email. =]

Actually, it could!

[pong]

I have never received a single spam e-mail for a legitimate product - not one - it's all about herbs, life-insurance, penis enlargement, crap like that. On the other hand the paper junk mail I get are from the local stores and are full of relevant offers.

I bet the difference is that the cost of paper junk mail is high enough, that you cannot market pure junk and earn enough on the fools.

Why?

[lostchicken]

If a company wanted to use junk email, they would send junk email for nearly free.

I only see the headers of my virtual junk mail, real junk mail sits in my trash can for a while, while I stare at it. The time of my staring at the flyer is worth much more to a company than the quarter second of visibility in my inbox, and that's why they pay for real mail.

Also when the postal service's IP hits the blacklist, it's all over.

junk mail over spam

[MarvinMouse]

For a bunch of reasons, I find junk mail far more enjoyable then spam.

1. Junk mail costs the sender totally, I don't spend a cent. While spam costs me download time, bandwidth, and a bunch more.

2. Junk mail is tactile. When it's good, it's nice to read through a brochure or flyer. when it's bad, it's nice to feel and hear the sound of it hit the recycling bin. E-mail is just annoying all around.

3. I enjoy receiving junk mail, it means someone actually is willing to spend money to reach me. I hate receiving spam, it means someone has stolen my e-mail from somewhere and is charging me for their advertising.

4. Junk mail comes with coupons which are sometimes useful. At the very most, you'll have to print out the coupons received through e-mail, or only buy through online sites.

5. Junk mail arrives once a day at a set time. Not every 5 minutes annoying me endlessly at work while I am waiting for slightly more important e-mails.

So naturally given the option, you can see why I would prefer Junk mail via post over spam e-mail. E-mail should be reserved for correspondances and important communications that need to be received and responded to quickly. Snail mail can be used for the rest of the junk. (Plus, with all of the virii out there I get enough crap without needing to worry about junk mail.

Re:junk mail over spam

[bmalia]

The article says that "To send mail through ePostbox, companies pay about 2 kronor (19 cents) per item, some 25 percent less than it would cost to have the mail delivered by carriers."
Since they are paying for it, it is different from the normal spam. They'll probably target an audience (and do a spell check!) before they send it off. I'd probably sign up if they were to send me a coupon for a free pint of Ben & Jerry's every month. Anyway, I'm just pointing out that these SHOULD be a higher quality spam that what we're used to.

Great.

[cjpez]

How about they just not send me unsolicited advertisements at all?

Junkmail vs. Spam

[nuxx]

I, personally, would happily take spam over real, physical junk mail any day. Every day I go to the mail box, checking for bills and the occasional real letter. Almost all I ever receive are junk mail, credit card offers, and crappy ad-funded local newspapers. I'd imagine that I fill a kitchen sized garbage can once a month with junkmail. That's a LOT. Imagine if your whole neighborhood received that much? Your county? Your state? What a waste of paper...

Give me spam any day. At least I can write filters to eliminate most of it, costing only a few bits. At least I'm not destroying trees, filling up landfills, and spewing chemicals all over.

-Steve

PS: You can cut down on some junkmail by calling 1-888-567-8688 to opt out of preapproved credit card offers. It won't get rid of all of them, but it'll cut down on those twice-daily offers of high interest plastic.

Polite Spammer

[scott1853]

I just got an e-mail last night from a spammer that's getting blocked by our little BSD postfix box. The very politely asked us to check on our server to make sure they weren't inadvertantly being marked as spammers.

They went on to explain how they were only an opt-in service and proceeded to list all the mail servers from which they send spam from.

I'll admit it was a nice gesture. It was especially nice of them to give us a complete list since we only had a couple of their boxes in the black list.

It's the obvious solution

[strredwolf]

1. Customers opt-in to get spam (in which case, it's not spam now).
2. Merchants pay more than the ISP connection for the service
3. The goverment controls delivery, and gets money for it.

I'd say the US Postal Service should take Sweden's lead!

the hidden benefit

[frovingslosh]

There is a major benefit to this approach that was not mentioned: Once the Swedish post office starts making that 19 cents per piece of spam, the Swedish government will look twice at all the spammers who are sending UCE directly without paying. While I certainly wouldn't want the government to stick it's nose so far into e-mail that any e-mail was taxed (and I expect this would be the final result), this should lead to some serious anti-spam laws with teeth in them. If done here in the U.S., and followed up with anti-(direct)-spam laws and serious enforcement, I'm certain it would significantly decrease the amount of spam sent to me each day.

Recycle Direct

[Animats]

What I want is Recycle Direct. The USPS already has a semi-automated system for rerouting mail using forwarding addresses. I want to be able to specify a separate forwarding address for my junk mail. Something like "Buffalo Paperboard Corporation, The Big Dumpster In Back, 470 Ohio Street, Lockport New York, USA 14094".

Mailers should be able to tell that I've done this, just as they can now run address files through the USPS and get forwarding addresses substituted and old addresses deleted. That would be an opt-out list with teeth.

Ingen Reklam Tack

[ZaneMcAuley]

"INGEN REKLAM TACK"

Thats all you need to stick on your post box or door. You dont get crapmail then. Except kommun (community stuff and real letters etc).

Simple. Works. Nay problemo.

Re:Ingen Reklam Tack

[CrystalFalcon]

It simply means "No advertisements, please."

(The "please" part is an integral part of Swedish language that needs to be affixed to most sentences and constructs, unless used on its own, which is almost always ok too. In fact, most everyday business transactions end with the parties thanking each other a couple of times. In the US, I would expect a sign with the same message, adapted for culture, to read "Junkmailers will be shot.") :-)

Get off the list for US citizens

[autocracy]

Want to cut down on your physical junk mail? Try this site: http://www.usps.com/websites/depart/inspect/fraud/ GetOffMailingLists.htm. Also offers removal from phone and e-mail lists too. See page for specific details.