Finland's Pilot Program To Scan All Snail Mail

Found this an interesting article ... and a bit disconcerting if privacy and confidentiality mean anything to anyone using the traditional mail system:

http://www.popsci.com/technology/ar...d-snail-mail

Actually the news is "old news" in this case. As far as I know, this experiment ended last year with mixed results. Some people liked it, others not so much.

But in business-to-business mail this kind of scanning service has been extremely popular for several years.

Sorry, didn't realize this was a 2010 article. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see some of the responses in the article to such a venture. As you have indicated, the test ended with mixed results. I suppose I can see it for business mail, but a personal letter from a friend or relative may be another matter. However, I guess no one sends that kind of material by "snail mail" anymore anyway, so it may be a pointless concern.

My initial reaction to all of it was the time and effort it would take to open, scan and deliver mail electronically. But I guess the concept was that the calculation of man hours to do that task versus the cost to physically deliver the mail to one's mailbox would be less.

If the experiment ended with mixed results, I can only assume it has not progressed to anything any more significant at present.

Thanks for the information, though.