USPS Data Mining Proposal

Nothing is safe or sacred anymore ...

http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/16/t...m-your-mail/

I consider it an invasion of my privacy, yet computer search engines and social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) do it now, so it seems the USPS is just trying to get on that same bandwagon.

Personally, I don't like the direction the USPS is taking on such matters. Sure, the USPS is trying to find ways of sustaining its financial picture, but there are other avenues that should be explored, too.

If they're looking to sell my personal data so marketers can send me junk mail, then the USPS is going too far and I'd have a huge problem with it. If they want to sell general information about, for example, a particular zip code, I've got much less of a problem with it.

Edited to add: To drive home the point on the fact that it's done electronically all the time, what do I see advertised at the link to the news story? Lighthouse binders! They knew to show me that ad from my browsing history, cookies on my hard drive, etc. There's an exceedingly small likelihood that anyone other than a stamp collector would see an ad for that specific item. Someone into fishing, for example, would see ads for fishing equipment, etc.

Hi ArtfulHinger, I guess someone messed up trying to mine my data! I see an ad for a sleep number bed!

Peter

Don't mind getting more junk mail. MAybe I can get more on cover usage of bulk mail rate stamps! Always a plus. What I don't need can go into the fool recycle bin.

They already have the data. Now they just want to sell it. USPS has been scanning and saving all information from envelopes at least for some years now.

Data mining already occurs at a much higher level than most people are aware; although Americans are a bit more antsy about the possible loss of personal freedoms. The vast majority of these kinds of metrics care little about specifically WHO we are; they care about what kind of person we are. In other words they are seeking to build a demographic profile about the things you, or someone in your home or on your PC, will buy in the future.

Many of the 'cookies' on your computer do exactly that, tracking where you go and what you search on when you use your PC. This allows them to then target exactly which banners and ads to show you on various web pages. If you a person who visits a lot of mountain biking and hiking web sites, the cookies will tell other sites you visit to display ads that target outdoor type of products for sale.

To demonstrate just how wide spread this practice is, try this simply test. Build a new user account on your PC. Log into it; it will have no cookies and no browsing history. Open a browser and go to a typical site like dictionary.com and look up a single word. Close your browser and go see how many cookies there are now in your file system. If you use the example I just gave, you will find no fewer than 68 cookie files!

Surely no one really thinks that their Gmail (or other 'free' email service) account is supplied out of a venders goodness of heart. They are all finely tuned to data mining. Try this. Open your Gmail account and send an email with a single unusual key word, pick something that is not common and something that you usually don't have an interest in ('Studebaker' would be a good choice for many). Now watch over the next few days on how many ads on web pages begin to display products that are related to old cars. Every 'free' email service provide is data mining every single email you send. The bots read your emails, catalog key words, and build profiles that is then sold by companies like Google and Yahoo to other web sites.

Moving to offline data mining, many states sell their driver license databases for profit to marketing companies. Another example, every wonder why you suddenly started getting solicitations from the local portrait photography studio when you started building your family? It is because the local hospital sells the names/addresses from the maternity ward. In some ways some folks would probably rather get targeted spam/junk mail as opposed to the same volume of inane advertising. Who wants to see ads for tampons or denture cream if you don't need these products?

I am sure that USPS already participates in some of these kinds of data mining practices. Their web site certainly uses cookies and I don't see how that is much different than them selling a demographic type profile of those who live in my home. Please don't flame me here, I am not trying to make a case that violates anyone's personal information. But we are moving into a completely different kind of world. Most of us grew up thinking of a social security number as being the pinnacle of personal identification. A social security number has nothing on your DNA and we shred DNA every place we go. So before we get on our high horse about USPS ignoring our personal freedom; consider how they are looking out for our personal freedoms by moving to self adhesive stamps!
don

You made some good point, Don.

I'm certain that most, if not all of us, understands the world we live in. Datamining for the purpose of advertising probably goes back as far as the first mail-order catalogues.

However, this is different in that we are talking about a government agency, under the premise of being a retail business, wanting to collect and store personal information about the citizens of the US.

What they propose to do with that information sounds inocuous, but that's not the point. Our government has well-defined and limited powers. Like it or not, the USPS is part of the US government, and by extension, should also be limited.

It has been stated: "Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long."

Allowing the USPS or any other government agency to collect and store personal information about us just adds to that mindset ...

Brian

If they're going to be selling my personal data, I'll just stop using the USPS altogether. I don't spend much on stamps, but my package business can go entirely to UPS or FedEx. Then they won't have any of my data to mine.

Good Grief.


-IBFS

Absurd. I can understand selective monitoring of the mail for national security purposes (and prosecution of criminal enterprise), but data mining our postal habits for profit? Never thought it would come to that, but nothing is surprising anymore.

51studebaker

Thanks for your post!

Very interesting but not big worries about privacy for me. I take all informations (publicity) has useful in decision making. As for junk mail you receive one day offering a product or service can be of no use now but can be in the future.

Manabe said:
"Similar practices have been employed by Silicon Valley's biggest companies for years, but have recently come under increased scrutiny since the disclosures of widespread National Security Agency bulk Internet and telephone data collection and surveillance programs were leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden last year."

Why in the world would he think this would be greeted any differently??

What in the world makes you think UPS and FedEx don't mine your data? There is much more of your personal data already out there in the world than you think could be gathered from your public information, and to stop using USPS or any other agency is not going to change it. If you just don't want the federal government mining your data that is a different story...still foolish, but different...I guess. Learn to live with it, it ain't gonna change.