DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

An article by Caroline E. Mayer in the Washington Post [original: Direct Marketers Adopt New Tactics on Mailings to Avoid Losing Business; sfgate.com mirror: Direct-mail businesses respond to anthrax fear] reveals that the Direct Marketing Association, which is responsible for most of the unwanted crap you receive via postal mail, has issued new guidelines to all its members — instructions for how to best continue sending out junk mail during the ongoing Anthrax scare.

The challenge, in a nutshell, is that average citizens are afraid to open unsolicited mail, given the potential downside (swollen lymph glands, necrosis, shock, vomiting, death). And yet the DMA member companies make way too much money from sending out junk mail; it’s in their best financial interests to disassociate their unsolicited mail from the type that might kill you. After all, if the powder that spills out of the latest Fingerhut catalog dissuades you from placing an order for a decorative lawn goose, then Fingerhut is out a few bucks. For the DMA, this won’t do at all.

The DMA advises members to “avoid using envelopes with no return address or clear identification marks,” on the theory that recipients are more likely to open an unsolicited envelope from a recognized merchant than an unsolicited, unlabelled envelope (which more likely than not would have otherwise been disguised as an “urgent mail-gram!”). I have to wonder why the DMA hadn’t advised merchants to identify themselves on junk mail prior to 9/11/01 — perhaps because this might normally prevent recipients from opening the mail? That is, in a sane world, well-balanced junkmail recipients might decide that this month’s JCPenny missive isn’t worth reading, but in an insane world, frightened and mistrustful junkmail recipients should be reassured that, compared to a potentially lethal infectious bacteria, the JCPenny catalog isn’t too bad after all.

The DMA advisory goes on to suggest “that businesses alert consumers to upcoming solicitation by first notifying them through e-mail or telemarketing calls.” So, DMA member companies are going to send me email I don’t want, to warn me that they’re going to send me paper mail that I don’t want? Or worse, they’ll interrupt my dinner with a phone call to tell me that the crap arriving in the mail tomorrow doesn’t have anthrax in it?

Perhaps now is a good time to remember that it’s possible to prevent telemarketing calls.