Denise Howell floats a modest proposal for trying to get rid of junk mail:


This sounds likely to have some effect, although it's somewhat time-intensive.  I've seen some other proposals, such as shredding the contents and returning to sender (etc.).  Maybe someone could use an auto dialer to call the junk mailers?

But all of this raises a point which I've long wondered about.  Why don't we have legislation which prohibits the transmission of unsolicited commercial (paper) mail?  It’s odd that junk mail law proposals have not really gotten anywhere. A junk mail law would be easy to enforce. It could provide for a few things: (1) a list where people could enter their addresses in order to opt-out of commercial mailings; (2) a provision that prior to selling anyone’s personal information the seller must obtain the addressee’s consent; and (3) an opt-out, which would require that all junk mail be accompanied by a postage-prepaid opt out form. Finally, the law could require any entity which sells or transfers address information to disclose the identity of the transferee(s) and the details of the transfer (e.g., the amount of money generated pursuant to the transfer or the terms of the transfer) upon request by the person whose address is transferred.

I would rank the provisions as listed above in reverse order of importance.

The “do not mail list” is probably the least necessary of all of the provisions. Oddly this is what people focus on the most in talking about junk mail legislation. The costs of maintaining the list, and the supposed inefficacy of similar lists in other contexts are also raised as potential hurdles. But the list doesn't seem like it needs to be a critical part of junk mail regulation.

Consent (the second point) would be helpful but is not critical. Having a consent provision would generate work for lawyers (who would advise their clients on how to procure consent and the legalese that would have to go into any consent). But ultimately, consent is also not critical to a junk mail provision.

This brings us to the last two points on the list. Honoring opt-outs, and disclosing sales of personal information. Of these, it’s a toss up as to importance.

An opt-out provision would be fairly straightforward. If you receive mail, each piece of mail should be accompanied by a small card you can fill out and send back, which states that you do not wish to receive further mail from this particular sender, and from anyone else that may have obtained your address from the same source. This should not be terribly difficult to implement in this day and age. If you are a mailer and you receive one of these cards, you simply send the opt-out information up the chain. In the end, the source of your address will receive the opt-out and should disseminate to all other sources the message that you have opted out. Does this raise implementation difficulties? Not really. The thrust of any junk mail legislation should be to force marketers who traffic in information to include contractual provisions which require transferees to honor opt-outs, and to retain the ability to push the opt-out up or down the chain. This isn’t rocket science.

Finally, the disclosure piece. This (and California has something like this for websites) could probably be the most effective piece of the puzzle. The idea is that consumers should be able to find out which entities they do business with “traffics in their address and other personal information.” Consumers should also be able to find out which businesses purchase this type of information. Once this information starts becoming public I have no doubt that a web-mob will mobilize and take care of the rest.

NB: people sometimes raise First Amendment issues in the context of junk mail regulation. Such concerns are generally overblown and aren’t really worthy of mention in the first place. In any event, the above structure doesn’t regulate speech except to the extent it restricts the ability of a commercial entity to send a message to someone who has requested not to receive it. Tough to see a First Amendment violation in these circumstances.