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Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Seattle Hates Junk-Mail

You think you hate junk-mail? Your hatred is nothing compared to Seattle's crusade against unwanted mail.

The Atlantic reported Monday on a new ranking put together by Berkeley, Calif.-based Catalog Choice, a privacy protection company, shows that Seattle, Wash. is the top city in the country when it comes to battling junk-mail. The organization surveyed its customers and found that the Emerald City had the most people who contacted them to get removed from the lists of junk-mail senders. Other cities that made the list were Santa Fe, NM, Boulder, Col., and Ithaca, NY.

Junk-mail is mostly associated with e-mail these days, but the death of junk direct mail has been delayed thanks to an initiative by the United States Postal Service (USPS). The "Every Door Direct Mail" program will essentially allow business to bombard your house with mail. Companies don't even have to know your address to send to you; they can simply select a neighborhood they want to target and their mail will be delivered to every house in that area.

Spam mail is not only annoying to recipients, it also is very pricey for city budgets. It costs about $40 a ton to send garbage to a landfill. On the other hand, it costs only $10 for them to work with Catalog Choice to get them removed from junk-mail lists.

You can read the full list of cities ranked by Catalog Choice in The Atlantic.

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