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

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!"

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.

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.

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.

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.") :-)