Are you having problems logging in to your account? Please send an email to help@catalogchoice.org. Include the following details (you can skip #3 if it’s too difficult, we understand):

1) Your internet service provider (eg, Comcast, HughesNet, DirecPC, AOL, AT&T, etc)
2) The email address used to login to your Catalog Choice account
3) Optional: Your external IP address. Open this website: http://whatismyip.com/ and copy the long number in the line that says ‘Your IP Address Is xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx’

If you have had problems the past few weeks, we made a change on Friday, December 11, that might help. Please try to login again and let us know if you were successful or not.

Lo and behold, I read in this Monday’s New York Times “Zappos tries a print catalog“.  According to the New York Times, “The catalog is the third from Zappos this year; Mr. Magness described the first two as tests”.

We are working on ways to stay more up to date with the new titles our Members suggest.  As we expand to cover all forms of advertising mail, it is more critical to leverage the input and knowledge of our Members.  Keep telling us what unwanted advertising mail you get and we will do our best to add it to our service so you and others can conveniently opt-out.

Here is how it works.  Log into your Catalog Choice account.  All of your activity messages are shown right on your  “Dashboard”.  Messages that require action on your part are in the seciton highlighted in red.

By selecting “Respond”, you can write a message to the mailer giving them the additional information requested.  We will track the status of your response the same way we track your original opt-out request.  You know the familiar “unconfirmed”, “delivered”, and “confirmed” labels.

Did you know that you can receive all the activity messages from a mailer directly to your personal email address?  Your email settings may be updated by going to My Profile.  You can access My Profile from the login strip at the top of the page or go to your “Dashboard” tab and select “My Profile”.

Here is the magic part.  If the activity message is delivered to your personal email and you reply, the response will be sent to the mailer from your unique Catalog Choice email address as well.  So, when we say we never release your email address, we mean it.

Need proof that you sent them the information they requested?  Your response is automatically saved in your Catalog Choice account for future reference.

With the completion of the Needs More Information system, we have the most transparent, straight forward mail preference service in the Nation.  Catalog Choice is facilitating a round trip a communication between you and mailers to decrease the amount of unwanted mail that shows up in your mailbox!  And did we mention that we do this without releasing your email address?

Jen also gets alot of fan mail, on behalf of the team. Here are several that have come in over the last couple weeks.

Just wanted to say THANK YOU so much for providing this great service! Not only am I not receiving unwanted catalogs but I’m also helping to save the environment! Your website also provides me with an easy way of finding any merchant and their website, also saving the environment. Thank you to all those merchants that have honored my request!
Barbara

Thanks so much for this service! I have been inundated with catalogs, so this site has been a tremendous help to me. I will be mailing a donation.

Kind regards, Jade

I am down to an occasional straggler as far as catalogs go! Many thanks for your help. I really appreciate your service and have been telling as many people as possible about it. In the latter part of 2007, I began using Catalog Choice. Initially, I visited the site frequently in my quest to end the onslaught of unsolicited catalogs in my mail box. That mission has been accomplished with your help.  Since then, I continue to visit Catalog Choice periodically to check on the status of my choices. Each time, I have been impressed with the ongoing improvements to the site. It’s easier than ever to use the site and access/review the information about my choices.  Interestingly, it’s very easy to request a catalog online but next to impossible to “unsubscribe” to one online. All the more reason to thank you for creating Catalog Choice, an ideal solution to that lack.

An appreciative fan,  Lynn

You are nothing short of phenomenal! I was listed on over 200 catalog mailing lists. We literally had to buy a larger box to accommodate them all. Yes, it took a while for me to “opt out” of so many of them, but going to my mailbox these days is a pleasure… I now average about 6 a week…almost all of them are welcome.  Thank you for your remarkable service…it truly works.

I want to share with you how Catalog Choice is making a difference. In
2001, at the urging of my spouse, who was amazed and disgusted with how
many catalogs were arriving in our mailbox, I collected, counted, and
catalogued all the catalogs for the entire year. By the end of the
year, we had a 3-foot high stack of catalogs — a total of 396. I kept
track of how many we received each month, and how many from each
company. (I’m an evaluator by profession). I signed up with Catalog
Choice in late 2007, and after a full year of using Catalog Choice, I
decided to track the catalogs coming in the door again this year (2009).
For the first three months of this year, we have seen a 69% decline in
the number of catalogs compared to the first three months of 2001.
That’s a huge difference!!! I’m going to collect them all year, and
maybe as some of the reluctant-to-stop companies finally get on board, I’ll see even fewer in
my mailbox.
Thank you,
Carole

I have definitely noticed a difference–42 catalogues confirmed! I am so pleased! Congratulations on pulling this off!  Thanks so much, Josie

If you have a story that you would like to share with us about how you have taken control of your mailbox, send us an email at Team(at)catalogchoice.org – we would love to hear what you have to say.

The above map show the distribution of visitors to Catalogchoice.org on April 22nd.  The highest concentrations correlate, for the most part, to overall population density in the country.  Consumers from every State of the Union used our service yesterday.

Clearly, Earth Day was inspiring for many.  Let’s make everyday an Earth Day.  Do your part to stop waste and go paperless by using Catalog Choice and telling your friends.  Sharing the word is easy with our Invite a Friend service.

Dear Chuck, I am more than happy to pass on information about Catalog Choice
to my friends.  I definitely will support merchants who participate in this
service.  The reason I will go to these merchants first is that I support
anyone who is concerned about making our world better.  We are living in a
time where we need to cut down on waste.  As our life is simplified (in this
case by removing waste), it allows for more free time to do the things we
enjoy… which can mean shopping and browsing online.  I visit your website
and have hundreds of catalogs at my fingertips and can browse and shop
without having my mailbox cluttered where there’s so many that I don’t even
look at them. They go straight to the recycling bin, because it’s
overwhelming.  It’s easier to just put them in the recycle bin than to start
sorting through.  Now I can just visit the catalog I’m in the mood for, when
I go to your website.

Thanks for this service, and I hope the merchants know we really appreciate
them listening.  It certainly doesn’t mean I will not shop with them… I
will shop online with any merchant online which is more convenient, and I’m
happy to be doing something to help our environment, and working with others
who have the same interest.

Thanks again

Donna

Norridge, IL

Today, we launched the Catalog Choice Email Subscription service. Email is a great paper-free way to learn about new products and deals offered by my favorite merchants.  Over 60% of Catalog Choice members are making a mail opt-out choice because they want to “help the environment” or “prefer to shop online”.  We expect that many of members would prefer to receive product information via email instead of the paper catalog.

But as we all have experienced, once we provide our email address for one newsletter, it can sometimes lead to a flood of unsolicited email.  As a result, we have designed our email opt-in service so that our consumer and merchant members can be assured that signing up for email news through the Catalog Choice will not generate unsolicited email messages.  Only messages from your chosen merchants will be delivered to the your inbox.  We guarentee it.

Our approach is simple and elegant.  If you have ever used Craig’s List to sell something, you are aware of the anonymous email address they provide: example: sale-abcde-123456789@craigslist.org.  Any messages sent to this address are forwarded to the poster’s real email address. Our system is similar.  When you subscribe to email news through Catalog Choice, we generate a unique catalogchoice.org email address for the specific Member and Merchant relationship.  Email messages sent by the merchant are delivered directly to your inbox by Catalog Choice as though the merchant directly emailed you.  If any of our email addresses are inadvertently sold or traded and an email is sent to a Member from a Merchant that you have not subscribed to, our system will capture and destroy the unsolicited email before it reaches your inbox.

For merchants who have activated the email opt-in service, we provide Members a one-click email subscription on the merchant’s mail preference page.  As shown below, the Email Subscription section is highlighted in green.  You sign up by selecting the Subscribe button.

Once you subscribe, we generate and deliver the unique email address to the merchant.  Soon thereafter, you will start receiving their email news delivered right to your inbox.  The timing of the emails is dependent solely on the frequency of the Merchant’s email newsletter.

As Laura states in her blog titled You Must Have Patience, Grasshopper, “Slowly, bit by bit, I received fewer and fewer catalogs every day. It is a mere trickle now.” I love her closing line: “Everything comes to those who wait. Or, in this case, doesn’t come any more.”

I joined Catalog Choice last year after being inundated year after year with un-asked for catalogs at the holiday time. I wanted to let you know that this year, I have received a FRACTION of the amount of catalogs that I normally get. THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!

We receive numerous words of gratitude from our members.  We really appreciate each one as it makes our job more rewarding.

We also receive our share of complaints.  For those frustrated by the fact that you still receive too many unsolicited catalogs, we share your frustration and are doing everything in our power to get your requests honored.  I know that the success rate is steadily improving.  Thank you for your patience.

We are busy working on new features for 2009 that will improve the service for our members – consumers and merchants.  Stay tuned.