Read Your Snail Mail Without Receiving It

Now here’s an interesting take on snail mail. I’m not sure about you guys, but I receive a lot of junk mail (and for what it’s worth, I’ll point out that it’s Rogers in Canada who are responsible for a lot of it), and it sucks. I hate running out to the mail box only to come back with three or four envelopes of pure junk mail. When I open up the mail box and find a credit card bill and actually get excited, then I know there’s an obvious problem.

It looks like some solutions are on their way, and some are even implemented now. A company called Earth Class Mail allows customers in 170 countries to sign up on the service using their mailing address, and from there-on-out, it’s intercepted, and the envelope is scanned and e-mailed to you. From there, you decide whether or not to trash it, have it opened (scanned and sent), or have it forwarded to the ultimate address.

This is a seriously cool concept, and it’s apparent that more than just that start-up thinks it’s a good idea. It looks as though the Swiss mail service has just opened its own service that’s works the same way, and people can take advantage of it for $18.35 US per month (kind of high?). Obviously, security buffs have reason to shun the service, but the Swiss postal service looks to be taking it extremely seriously. If you opt into the service, your mail will actually be handled in the same facility as where banking materials are taken care of. Let’s see if this begins to catch on over here… my recycling bin is begging for it to be so.

All the images are encrypted, and you can even request that mail that contains personal information (such as bills or credit card offers) be shredded. This is all done with your authorization—if you’re in the US, you must file a form with the US Postal Service so they know someone’s not just trying to steal your mail—and the company promises the utmost privacy and security with your documents.