First, direct mail is different in many respects from email. On the most basic level, direct mail bears no cost for the recipient. The sender bears all the costs of preparing and sending the mail.

Second, unlike email, the cost of sending each piece of direct mail through the postal service is paid by the sender. No one can "dump" millions of pieces of mail into mail channels without paying a fee for what they send.

Third, the impact on small businesses would be horrendous. Small businesses have very few affordable ways to advertise now. Direct mail is one of them. Take that away, or make it very time consuming and expesive to comply with laws, and you adversely impact millions of small businesses.

Fourth, laws to make sending direct mail more difficult will put hundreds of thousands of workers out of work. For starters, look at the Post Office. About half the mail they deliver is "standard" mail (ie: Not first class mail.) If half of their business is greatly impacted, what would happen to the size of the Post Office's workforce (which is now some 700,000 strong)? How many postal workers would be unemployed? Postal workers, aren't the only people who would lose jobs if do not mail laws go into effect. Ad agency workers, direct mail production /addressing services, list brokers, and companies that rely on mailing list rental for part of their income would start to layoff workers. And, then there are all the mail order companies. Guess what would happen to many of their employees...

Fifth: (This one is a guess) ... the cost of first class mail would need to go up more and faster to cover the losses of income from decreased standard mail mailings. First class mail is already declining (that's not a guess - it's a fact from the Post Office annual report.)

Sixth: Your coupons could go missing. Yes, Virginia (and Victor, too), those coupons you use for buying everything from the latest clothes to lunch at neighborhood restaurants could go bye-bye if they couldn't easily be sent in mail - or if you put your name on a general do not mail list because you didn't want to get other kinds of bulk mail.

Seven: I don't think the majority of consumers care how much direct mail they receive. Some actually like it. Find a woman (or a man) who likes to make their home look attractive, and I bet you'll find a Pottery Barn catalog or two saved in a drawer for ideas for redoing a room. (Mine are stacked with a couple of magazines I bought.)

Direct mail doesn't harm anyone. Much of it can be recycled, too.

So, legislators, before you go out trying to make a name for yourself by crying wolf about consumers being inundated with or disliking "junk mail" think about the effect such a law would really have. Then, go find real needs and injustices in your states and introduce legislation to address those issues. Direct mail isn't one of them.

PS: Direct Mailers: keep those consumer catalogs coming to my home address and the office supplies catalogs coming to my business address. It sure beats having to go out in traffic to go look for the things I want to buy.