[net.misc] What to do with junk mail

aark (11/30/82)

I remember reading an article by Abbie Hoffman (anyone remember him?)
in "New Times" magazine about various ways to rip off the system.
His suggestion for junk mail went something like this:

	When you get a piece of junk mail, paste the Business Reply
	card to a brick and drop it in the mailbox.  The company
	is required by law to pay first-class postage.  You can also
	get rid of all your garbage this way.

I would add the following two points:  Don't put your name or address
anywhere on the card, and use a public mailbox.

Alan R. Kaminsky
Bell Laboratories, Naperville, IL
...ihps3!ihuxe!aark

rcj (12/01/82)

It was suggested in net.misc  that one might use the Abbey
Hoffman approach to stopping junk mail and "beating the system".  Hoffman's
approach involved taking the business' return stamp (postage guaranteed)
and glueing it to a brick or other piece of garbage which they would be
forced by law to pay postage on.

As with most radicals and fanatics, Abbey Hoffman's heart was in the right
place but his methods hurt more people than they help.  Just like the
people who reverse their power meters to "get that damn power company",
they are merely raising the rates for everyone else.  Same for industrial
saboteurs and embezzlers.  If the industry itself is not hurt, it is only
because some insurance company has had to pay and will eventually raise
its rates accordingly.  The sensible (and in my view the easiest to 
implement and most effective) way of stopping (or at least slowing down)
junk mail on a major scale is to start campaigns to have people volun-
tarily remove themselves from mass mailing lists.  This is everyone's
right by law, and is fairly easy to do.  Certainly, new lists will crop
up very quickly.  but with a couple of letters a year one can render the
junk mailers powerless, and hopefully have an eventual long-term effect.

(of course, this effect might manifest itself through more television
and radio advertising -- it might be a better idea just to throw away
the junk mail instead)

				The MAD Programmer (alias Curtis Jackson)
				Western Electric - Burlington, NC
				(919) 228-3814 or Cornet 291