Canada Post retreats in battle over mail privacy

If you are changing your address, you will soon be able to deny Canada Post the right to sell your new address to mass mailers and direct marketers.

Canada Post announced on April 17, 2002 that it would change its change of address cards to allow users to choose whether or not they will allow their new address to be sold or provided to business mailers.

By agreeing to change the address cards, Canada Post was backing down from a legal challenge it made of a ruling in January, 2002 by the Federal Privacy Commissioner, George Radwanski, that said Canada Post was breaking the law by selling addresses to business mailers.

Radwanski is well known by Canada Post. In 1996, at the request of the Government of Canada, Mr. Radwanski chaired the mandate review of Canada Post that resulted in the company being forced to justify its methods of doing business. Of the 31 recommendations in the review, only two were implemented by the Federal Government: the creation of a Canada Post Ombudsman and Canada PostÔÇÖs discontinuation of its Economy Admail service.