For the DIY route see https://www.catalogchoice.org/, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
I tried PaperKarma and had decent results. You offer up privacy and lack of app as a differentiator— should I be concerned having used PaperKarma? Are they charging me AND selling data?
I also like the idea of the research assistant. It is a mess trying to figure out how to reduce waste that accumulates without my real consent, from mail, food packaging, single use packaging/plastic tossed into orders despite me saying I don’t want it, hard to recycle e-waste, confusing/changing recycling rules for plastic and even glass some places. However, I also think that this can only be meaningfully improved with policy, not an opt-in, private service. Better than nothing, of course.
Aside from that, I actually have to thank you, because I stopped using it, forgot the name of the company, and forgot what was charging me $4 every month under the label “JET*.”
Thanks to privacy laws, we do not get much personal spam in the mail in France (one that is addressed to you). We get quite a lot of anonymous one, though.
There are stickers your can use on your mailbox that theoretically protect your from spam but it works maybe in 10% of the cases.
Out of curiosity, I reached a few times to the "senders" telling them that they put spam in my mailbox despite the sticker. All of them were completely taken aback and had no idea about how to react.
I mentioned privacy and whatnot and they all promised to get back to me, never got back and probably cross fingers to have the case closed :)
In the US you can opt out of the majority of junk mail from creditors and insurance here - https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/prescreened-credit-insuran...
We should all have a personal postal code that would link to our current address.
When we change our address we would link the postal code to the new directory. By having this the companies would not know where we live and we would have a place to select the mail we want.
> Protect your privacy
> Just link your name, home address, and phone number for this random company
Yeah, no thanks.
Edited to clarify for those who may be unfamiliar with the concept of PII.
Unrelated to the project, I'm excited for AI-generated art to get better or decline in popularity.
The art on the homepage and its Stripe checkout pages give me the heebie-jeebies for some reason.
What's the pitch vs PaperKarma?
Does this work in the UK?
I really like the concept of "text this number to perform action". There was a post a few months back about a postcard creation service where you just text a photo.