--On Monday, 09 December, 2002 17:49 -0500 Bill Cunningham
<billc44@citynet.net> wrote:
> I haven't personally tried myself to opt out. But I've read
> they have the form. If they told you they don't have a form to
> sort out junk mail for you I'd say they were full out it. I'd
> call the Postmaster General's office.
Bill,
For the US Post Office, they don't have the form. In another
context, I've been over this with the Postal Inspection Service.
They have two other forms and models, one of which is probably
getting confused with this.
(1) You can decline to receive the particular form of junk mail
that is addressed to "occupant", "boxholder", or similar generic
terms. For that, there is a form.
(2) You can also decide that particular types of materials,
identifed by specific description (nearly impossible in most
cases) or source is obscene. Once you do that, and perform the
relevant rituals, it becomes illegal for identified sources to
send the stuff to you. In general, you can't get the post
office to open all of your mail and do content filtering to be
sure it doesn't meet your criteria for obscenity. And you
probably wouldn't want to, since that would require authorizing
them to open and read all of your mail. But it can be an
effective way to prevent a particular sender for sending you
specific kinds of materials, since the penalties for sending
obscene materials through the mails are quite severe.
If it is addressed to you, by name and matching address, they
are, as Stephen indicated, legally required to deliver it
(unless it falls under the prohibitions of (2) above). So,
oddly, you can opt out of "untargeted" mailings, but not out of
"targeted" ones.
john