Anti-Direct-Mail Group Seeks to Ignite Consumers

Private Citizen, a Naperville, IL-based consumer advocacy group that fights the direct marketing industry on behalf of consumers’ privacy, is promoting “Cut Junk Mail Month” in April. The organization is outraged at an apparent increase in direct mail solicitations following the implementation of the national Do-Not-Call registry last year. Its ultimate goal is a Do-Not-Mail list.

On PrivateCitizen.com, the call to action reads: “This will be fun and easy. It will also put the junk mail industry and Congress on notice that Americans are fed up with their daily trip from mailbox to trash bin. Now, you can help get junk mail out of your mailbox and into the history books, with the Edsel and spray-on hair. When you get junk mail during April, don’t open it. Instead, write ‘Refused’ on it, save it, and on May 1st (May Day), take it all back to your post office. Postal regulations require them to accept and return it to sender or trash it. On May 1st, tell junk mailers, ‘Get a life, and stay out of mine.’ In this election year, Congress will take notice. The result can be a national do-not-mail list.”