Monday 12 March 2007

More on Junk Mail

The petition is entitled national database of addresses where people would prefer not to receive unsolicited mailings and the explanatory notes say
"The Prime Minister shall make it his responsibility to: 1 Set up a national database of UK addresses where the owner or occupier would prefer not to receive 2 Require the Home Secretary to administer said database by asking the Police and Security Services to address and to advise on issues of security, as and when they arise. 3 Require the Environment Secretary to inform the operation of the database so that it works at a national, local authority and local community level. 4 Categories of non-addressed mail should include, but not be limited to: a. Commercial advertising b. Appeals by bodies of a charitable nature c. Information from a local authority where it under no legal obligation to supply (i.e. information about new services, regular mailings or brochures, surveys etc.) d. Material circulated by political parties e. Newsletters, petitions, advance notice of social activities and similar which may on an occasional basis be circulated by volunteers to a locality"

This petitioner is even madder than the one I talked about in Stop Junk Mail, since s/he is clearly requesting something that already exists ...

Also, s/he has signed themselves "Lobster Blogster", which I must say made me suspect s/he wasn't for real. On the other hand, having located their blog, I note that someone has already mentioned this and s/he says
"OK, I admit it's not [my real name], but everyone I know personally knows my real name and that I blog as Lobster Blogster. I've had nicknames since I was plankton, and LB is no different form that. Incidentally I've signed four or five petitions in the name of Lobster Blogster, but I always give my real name and address. Er, and Tony Blair knows my real name and address, does it matter that you don't?"


So apparently s/he does mean it seriously and simply hadn't noticed the Mailing Preference Service. Oops.

3 comments:

Lobster Blogster said...

If the Mailing Preference Service could stop the tide of Pizza, Double Glazing and Estate Agents' leaflets I receive every day then I would welcome it. Unfortunately they can't.

cim said...

As someone on the MPS list, I can agree that there's a lot of things it doesn't block - categories c, d and e aren't included, and neither are categories a and b when addressed to 'the occupier' or otherwise unaddressed.

There is a separate list (sorry, I can't remember where) for people to sign up to with the post office to block 'the occupier' mail, but there's probably nothing that can be done about pizza leaflets, etc. though a "no adverts" sign might reduce it.

As far as blocking political party material goes, try sticking a sign on your letter box saying "I will not vote for any political party that places its material through this letter box". It's unlikely that it will stop it, but if you're lucky you'll be able to sell a picture of a Labour supporter delivering Conservative publicity, or vice versa.

Lobster Blogster said...

I do own up to being completely bonkers, but that is not a good reason to criticise my petition as such. I could have had a moment of lucidity and accidentally written a meaningful petition.

I have signed up to the MPS, and that has cut down the number of addressed items I receive. But my problem is with the multitude of unaddressed items. Update 3 on my post shows the "more details" bit as I would have submitted it if a) the PM's site allowed formatting and b) if it wasn't restricted to 1000 characters. I give a definition for "Junk Mail" which I think Jenny was unaware of when he/she made her original criticism.