Today I opened my (real-world physical) mailbox for the first time this week. I do have a huge sticker (about 10 centimeters wide and three high) which is labeled “NO ADVERTISEMENTS”. Yet, guess what: The contents of my mailbox were about a half-dozen flyers, as well as a magazine from my health insurance.
I’m now wondering if there is something I can do about. I could seal my mailbox in the presence of a witness and wait a week, open it in the presence of that witness, and see what’s inside.
The whole thing is just a huge annoyance. I already make a point out of not buying pizza from the one place that always hands out these flyers. In fact, I went in there and told them to stop putting flyers in the mailboxes of people who do not wish that. If you allow me a cynical and sarcastic remark: These guys are foreigners – they do niot look italian yet run an italian pizzeria. I seriously doubt they have more brains or command of the German language than your average McDonald’s front-line employee. Even if they understood my point, they couldn’t care less.
I am starting to believe that the whole advertisement industry needs some very strict laws to protect average citizens like me. I am really fed up with having to sift through all these unsolicited advertisements. It’s quite okay if they’re part of a package deal like a newspaper or a television programme. It’s also okay if they hand out flyers on the street – afterall, I can just ignore the stupid guy who hands them out.
But what is the moral justification to grant these people the right to use my mailbox – which is, afterall, solely intended for important correspondence – as a dumpster for their paper refuse? Why should they be allowed to unload these flyers on me? Why? Where is my benefit? Except, if you allow me this observation, to warn me that there is a pizza place a couple blocks down the road that has no morals whatsoever and probably servers fried rats as a topping?
No, unsolicited advertisement should be outlawed, and any violation should be fined with very large sums. I’m thinking a couple ten thousand Euros per incident, that is, per flyer that was handed out.