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Brave’s use of direct mailers

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Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#121

Post by twipes »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #96
Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live there is a community mailbox for the 60 units in the complex. At the mailbox is a recycling bin where we can put the junk mail. My neighbour takes care of the recycling bin and empties it every week. Based on the volume I get and the volume in the bin, I estimate that about half of the units dump the junk mail straight into the bin. I'm sure the rest eventually makes its way into recycling bags at each u…

I thought everyone knew by now that paper recycling is a scam? It doesn’t happen. Not cost effective.

As someone who works in the recycling industry (toilet paper & wet wipes). That's just not true for paper. It it plastic that is hardly recycled...

Wood pulp and recycled pulp are both in incredibly high demand at the moment and both incredibly cheap to use.

I can't speak for global stats, but here in England, as of 2018, we were importing over $600 million of just recycled paper to use from abroad! [ https://www.statista.com/statistics/490038/eu27-import-value... ]

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#122

Post by encryptluks2 »

VanTheBrand wrote: post #80
encryptluks2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't donate to the wrong religion he donated to Prop 8 a proposal in California to ban same-sex marriage. Acting like same-sex marriage is a religion is bigoted and should not be tolerated here.

Prop 8 was the Mormons. I agree wrong religion is maybe confusing but that’s both who was behind it and why he donated.

So he didn't give money to support Prop 8 and only gave it to the mormon church?

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#124

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

Amezarak wrote: post #116
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"our EDDM vendor" seems to imply a third party getting the addresses to print (because there's no need to keep the vendor name secret if it's the USPS), but maybe they just thought it sounds better than saying "the USPS".

Someone has to print the mailers. The USPS lists the EDDM vendors on its website and they work through the USPS. https://printerdirectory.usps.com/listing/#/results

The mailer itself and the address can be printed separately. I didn't dive deep enough to confirm it, but I think these companies print the mailer and USPS prints the addresses.

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#125

Post by wzdd »

paulgb wrote: post #3

It seems like a weird mia culpa. If I’m understanding right, they’re not sorry for sending the mailers, or working with a data broker to get the addresses, just for the fact that names were printed on the envelopes? I wonder who is concerned about the last one that isn’t more concerned about the first two.

Even if we accept that it's just about the names, it's a weird mea culpa. Obviously they knew the names, because they accidentally printed them. So what they're apologising for is making it so obvious that they knew the names, or, to put it another way, they're apologising for failing to provide the illusion of anonymity to people who were not anonymous at all.

For a privacy-focused browser, that is definitely odd.

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#126

Post by drusepth »

Firehawke wrote: post #84
smeej wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not from companies I've never interacted with, no. I haven't done any of the extreme privacy things, but I do use a PO box for almost everything, and thus I really don't ever get anything addressed to my name sent to my actual residence.

Really? Because every time a new dentist office, grocery store, etc. opens up I get unsolicited mail from them to let me know they're now a thing in my neighborhood. Does it bother me? Not in the slightest. It's a community notice, and the Brave thing would only annoy me if it hit the levels that AOL CDs were at in the 90s.

This is probably a very location-dependent experience. I had literal stacks of spam mail every single mail day when I lived in Springfield and Kansas City, almost zero spam mail over entire years when I lived in smaller Missouri cities, and nowadays get maybe ~1-2 spam pamphlets per month at most here in Portland.

Probably based on a mix of local laws and/or how profitable each city is to market to.

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#127

Post by panny »

paulgb wrote: post #3

It seems like a weird mia culpa. If I’m understanding right, they’re not sorry for sending the mailers, or working with a data broker to get the addresses, just for the fact that names were printed on the envelopes? I wonder who is concerned about the last one that isn’t more concerned about the first two.

Addresses are not secret. Printing the name with the address might seem like a privacy faux pas, but in actuality it's a mailing faux pas. If USPS knows you don't live there anymore, they return to sender. That's a lot of expensive postcards going around for nothing. If however, it is addressed to "current resident" it's not a problem.

The story seems like trying to make lemons into lemonade. "Well, we wasted money, but maybe we can get a bit of privacy protecting glow from this cock-up anyway."

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#128

Post by nvrspyx »

gruez wrote: post #106
password4321 wrote: post #11

I like Brave. But they always seem to be "asking forgiveness rather than permission".

Given that EDDM is an official offering from USPS, and that USPS is a government agency, it's reasonable to conclude that this activity is state sanctioned. In that case what permission do they need to ask for?

USPS EDDM requires that you only put the area information (city, state, and zip code) and the EDDM label. The fact that this included actual addresses, much less names, is off. The only actual addresses that should be included are Do Not Deliver addresses.

Something is fishy here. This doesn't seem to actually be through EDDM, but through some mailer vendor.

Re: Brave’s use of direct mailers

#129

Post by dangrossman »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #96
Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live there is a community mailbox for the 60 units in the complex. At the mailbox is a recycling bin where we can put the junk mail. My neighbour takes care of the recycling bin and empties it every week. Based on the volume I get and the volume in the bin, I estimate that about half of the units dump the junk mail straight into the bin. I'm sure the rest eventually makes its way into recycling bags at each u…

I thought everyone knew by now that paper recycling is a scam? It doesn’t happen. Not cost effective.

64.7% of the paper you put in the recycling bin is indeed recycled.
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