Results of two submissions to The DMA Mail Preference Service
(now called DMAchoice)

In the spring of 2009, I moved to a place where the previous resident was receiving a large number of catelogues. After several suggestions from publishers to register with The DMA (apparently that's what The DMA tells them to say because the suggestion is fairly uniform), I went to their site. Since I had already been warned that some mailers use their "Mail Preference List" (now DMA Choice) to identify people who get few catelogues, I was reluctant to register with them!

I looked at their website and found a list for relatives to list ill and deceased recipients. I figured most catelogue publishers were not really looking for dead recipients and submitted the prior resident's name and my current address to that list.

I then thought through the implications of Officially listing a person as "deceased" with The"Direct Marketing Association.

How would I like it if someone "killed" me on account of junk mail?
So I proceeded to register myself as deceased.

I may not be the only person to undertake a murder-suicide over junk mail, but at least I'm the first to admit it on the web!

The Result


Well, I presume that The DMA is a highly reputable and honest entity. Nevertheless, being somewhat cynical about their motives, I used a throw-away email address. (Hmm.. I wonder why they needed my email address for a request to discontinue catalogue mailings?) The Spamgourmet address was used exclusively for these two "mail preference" requests to The DMA.

Well, after a set number of mailings I no longer received mail sent to that address. Presumably The DMA sent confirmation emails indicating the requests were received, but that still leaves some 261 other emails.

As can be seen, there are 11 emails forwarded and another 252 deleted (which is the purpose of Spamgourmet). In addition to the two confirmation emails (I forget if they actually send confirmations), that's 261 emails received at an address used exclusively for submission of these to requests to The DMA.

This list of approximately 261 emails was taken 14-Jul-2012. Consider that Spamgourmet bounces emails that are not delivered. Presumably "mainsleeze" spammers attempt to delete addresses which bounce, so 261 emails seems to be an extraordinarily high number.

UPDATEThe email count as of July-2013 is now up to 506. Pretty impressive for an organisation that espouses consumer choice and privacy! From their website:

All personally identifiable information collected by registration for these services is used to implement your preferences only. The DMA does not sell consumer mailing or emailing lists.

UPDATEThe email count as of November-2015 is now up to 1123.

UPDATEThe email count as of May-2018 is now up to 1787. These guys don't give up!

Screenshot of the results:
screemshot showing 252 discarded emails sent to a spamgourmet.com address

This page first posted 4-Aug-12; revised 1-Nov-15.

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