Press release:

Marketers now face prison if they consistently ignore the wishes of consumers who do not wish to be contacted for marketing purposes.

The CPUT Regulations include 31 banned practices that will always be considered to be unfair. One of these is ‘making persistent and unwanted solicitations by telephone, fax, email or other remote media except in circumstances and to the extent justified to enforce a contractual obligation’. Breaching this banned practice is a criminal offence and carries with it a maximum fine of £5000 currently and or a term of imprisonment not exceeding two years.

The term ‘other remote media’ has yet to be defined, but there is the argument that this could include direct mail sent through the post. If this is so, the Mailing Preference Service will have legislative backing providing greater protection for its subscribers.

Janine Paterson, Legal and Public Affairs Advisor at the DMA, warns: “Companies ignoring the TPS and persistently calling numbers registered on the scheme have got away lightly. Now however they could face prison if they continually call numbers against the consumer’s wishes. The DMA welcomes this new legislation and is advising members on this and other elements of CPUT Regulations and the Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations. ”

Companies ignoring TPS face prison warns DMA

The Postal Service doesn’t like the term “junk mail”, and for obvious reasons, neither do the people who use direct mailings to sell their products. So it might come as a surprise to find that the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) uses the term in advertisements for its “dmachoice.org” web site. One ad says “Postal service junk mail Choose Only The Catalogs You Want! Free Service Supported by the USPS”. Another reads “Stop Paper Junk Mail” Reduce Mailbox Clutter- Sign Up for DMA’s Mail Preference Service!”

Interestingly enough, the term “junk mail” doesn’t appear on the dmachoice site itself, although it is included in the keyword code for several pages. Keywords are embedded in the HTML code of web pages, and can be used by search engines, but aren’t visible to a person viewing the page.

There doesn’t seem to be much common ground between major mailers and some postal employees, especially APWU members. But here’s something both groups would probably agree on- Lawrence Buc’s suggestion, in rate case testimony on behalf of the DMA, that the USPS probably has too many supervisors:

According to the Postal Service, Cost Reduction Programs enable it to save 9,951.1 clerk and mailhandler workyears in FY 2006 through what the Postal Service labels as Section 1A programs. Cost reduction programs also enable it save 8,955.9 clerk and mailhandler workyears in these programs in FY 2007, and 5,106.4 clerk and mailhandler workyears in the Test Year. However, the Postal Service claims that these truly impressive savings in craft labor will not enable it to save even a single supervisor workhour in any of these three years.