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Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

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Re: Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

#71

Post by TeMPOraL »

tomschlick wrote: post #67
asark wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why IRL mail spam is still allowed. It's a fucking nuisance. 95% of the mail I get is junk mail. Another 4% is recurring bill notices or something similarly low-value (yeah, I could probably make some of those go away by logging into whatever-it-is and checking a box somewhere, but it's overwhelmed by the junk mail anyway). Maybe 1% is something I actually care about. And I get a lot of mail. I'd pay a fe…

> I don't get why IRL mail spam is still allowed. Because bulk mail makes up the majority of the USPS operating budget.

So maybe let's shift some budget from EPA to USPS, given that killing off mail spam means that much less environmental damage to deal with.

Yeah, I should write someone in my country and make the same argument here. It's a fucking nuisance in Poland as well.

One day somebody - maybe the underpaid delivery labor, maybe some angry neighbor - dumped some of the spam that was left on the mailboxes all over the floor of our block of flats. Most of the leaflets were of a local pizza chain, so I got on my bike, drove over to them and rose a stink about it with their manager. Not sure if it did anything, but boy it felt good. It's probably wasn't even their fault - except it was, for printing and distributing this garbage in the first place. I think people need to start retaliating against the companies that advertise this way.

Re: Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

#72

Post by asark »

tomschlick wrote: post #67
asark wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why IRL mail spam is still allowed. It's a fucking nuisance. 95% of the mail I get is junk mail. Another 4% is recurring bill notices or something similarly low-value (yeah, I could probably make some of those go away by logging into whatever-it-is and checking a box somewhere, but it's overwhelmed by the junk mail anyway). Maybe 1% is something I actually care about. And I get a lot of mail. I'd pay a fe…

> I don't get why IRL mail spam is still allowed. Because bulk mail makes up the majority of the USPS operating budget.

Back of the envelope (haha) we're talking somewhere in the range of $10-20/person/month, gross. Say half that after costs incurred by actually transporting and delivering that bulk mail (so, 50% profit, which seems high but is fine for the sake of argument).

I dunno about you, but I wouldn't just vote for a $5-10/month tax to eliminate junk mail entirely, I'd go door-to-door campaigning for it. I'd make signs. I'd call all my friends. What a bargain.

Re: Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

#73

Post by joncrane »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #69
asark wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why IRL mail spam is still allowed. It's a fucking nuisance. 95% of the mail I get is junk mail. Another 4% is recurring bill notices or something similarly low-value (yeah, I could probably make some of those go away by logging into whatever-it-is and checking a box somewhere, but it's overwhelmed by the junk mail anyway). Maybe 1% is something I actually care about. And I get a lot of mail. I'd pay a fe…

There's a large trash can right next to my neighborhood's mailboxes that everyone dumps the junk into with barely a glance - really illustrates how wasteful it is to be delivering it in the first place. It's a disgustingly huge trash can that has to be emptied daily.

Ha. I petitioned to our HOA to put a trash can next to every mailbox and they refused.

Re: Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

#74

Post by tenebrisalietum »

justaguyhere wrote: post #62

I am fascinated by the steps that lead to such decisions. When someone initially mentioned this idea, no one in the chain objected? Like, no one took 10 seconds to pause and say, this is not right? If they did, they got overruled? In my team of 7 people, it is nearly impossible to bring up dumb ideas without someone immediately poking a hole in it ...

When you more or less directly receive money by implementing a dumb idea, the incentives don't align to select them out.

States need money, taxes are politically unpopular, therefore this happens.

Re: Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

#75

Post by asark »

spartas wrote: post #70
asark wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why IRL mail spam is still allowed. It's a fucking nuisance. 95% of the mail I get is junk mail. Another 4% is recurring bill notices or something similarly low-value (yeah, I could probably make some of those go away by logging into whatever-it-is and checking a box somewhere, but it's overwhelmed by the junk mail anyway). Maybe 1% is something I actually care about. And I get a lot of mail. I'd pay a fe…

You do pay a fee for mail service. While USPS is not directly funded by taxes, it is funded by the Federal Government. Our taxes are responsible for financing the government's initiatives. The problem is that the cost to bulk mail (at least 200 pieces) is merely $0.19 per piece. If you want to DOS an entire zip code regardless, EDDM is actually cheaper (per piece) at $0.187. USPS is getting that money. You would need…

That $0.19's not pure profit. There are fixed costs to providing service to all these addresses, sure, but even so, bulk mail has to add expenses on top of that, for transportation, storage, and delivery. The fee to end junk mail would only need to cover the net income from that, not the gross.

Re: Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

#76

Post by dingus »

asark wrote: post #63
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #38

Been happening for decades. When I got my driver's license (in the 1980's) in Iowa, they misspelled my name - Soseph instead of Joseph. I asked for a corrected license. They typed up another one but didn't go back and correct the record. So, I got solicitations in the mail for months for Soseph Altmaier. And that was before computers were used much.

I don't get why IRL mail spam is still allowed. It's a fucking nuisance. 95% of the mail I get is junk mail. Another 4% is recurring bill notices or something similarly low-value (yeah, I could probably make some of those go away by logging into whatever-it-is and checking a box somewhere, but it's overwhelmed by the junk mail anyway). Maybe 1% is something I actually care about. And I get a lot of mail. I'd pay a fe…

> It's a fucking nuisance

It's also a monumental waste of resources: process trees for paper, process inks, print the spam, ship spam to distribution center, ship spam to local dispatch, drive spam to mailbox, recipient puts spam directly into trash, garbage collector drives to collect spam, dump spam into a hole in the ground, bury the spam.

While I'm sure it's inaccurate, that's about the gist of it, isn't it? You can substitute trash for recycling to get an equally pointless loop of wasting resources.

Re: Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

#77

Post by fitzroy »

How to Cut Down on Unwanted Junk Mail https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/smarter-living/how-to-cut...

I get very little paper mail now except for companies that I already have accounts with (and who seem to believe that “paperless” doesn’t apply to the marketing departments).

Re: Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

#78

Post by matthewdgreen »

asark wrote: post #63
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #38

Been happening for decades. When I got my driver's license (in the 1980's) in Iowa, they misspelled my name - Soseph instead of Joseph. I asked for a corrected license. They typed up another one but didn't go back and correct the record. So, I got solicitations in the mail for months for Soseph Altmaier. And that was before computers were used much.

I don't get why IRL mail spam is still allowed. It's a fucking nuisance. 95% of the mail I get is junk mail. Another 4% is recurring bill notices or something similarly low-value (yeah, I could probably make some of those go away by logging into whatever-it-is and checking a box somewhere, but it's overwhelmed by the junk mail anyway). Maybe 1% is something I actually care about. And I get a lot of mail. I'd pay a fe…

You can pay a fee to avoid mail spam. Just rent a Post Office box and they’ll filter all that stuff out for you. Downside is that they won’t bring it to your house.

If you want a post office that works for you and taxes you appropriately, amen. Some politicians believe that organizations like the post office should be privatized and taxes minimized, thus USPS is forced to find private revenue sources. The result is junk.

Re: Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

#79

Post by howard941 »

DHSMV (what we call it down here) wrote me a couple of months back to let me know they were hacked. Although they didn't offer ID protection (FWTW) they did call a few times to remind me that they lost something beyond what they're peddling.

And speaking of peddling, they're peddling to people banned by other states from accessing the same sort of material, per http://www.fox13news.com/news/fox-13-investigates/senator-ca... (2016)

I loved Florida when I moved here in the late 70s but Something Happened and the grifters latched on to the power handles. We went from pervasive but obvious corruption through the mid-late 60s, true honest to god sunshine - passing laws other states modeled themselves after, then wham that Something Happened. Don't blame me, I voted for Pajic.

Re: Florida DMV sells personal info to private companies, marketing firms

#80

Post by turc1656 »

This really pisses me off because you don't even have an option to not do business with the DMV. Even if you don't drive (highly unlikely in FL), you still need a non-driving ID card so there's no way to avoid getting swept up into this bullshit.

I see they have included an opt out link. That's nice. I wonder if they honor it. Even if they do, 99.999% of the population will never even know to do this because they've probably never heard of this company (I didn't until today).

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