The United States Postal Service is looking to get in on the big-data-for-profit game played by tech giants like Facebook and Google, and begin mining and selling private data gathered from personal mail sent from and received by Americans everywhere.
USPS chief marketing and sales officer Nagisa Manabe recently told the forward-looking PostalVision 2020 conference that the post office is “actively looking for ways to build new business lines around what not long ago might have been considered science fiction,” eCommerce Bytes reports.
While some of those ideas included new delivery services from partnerships like grocery chains, others seek to increase revenues from advertising by mining, storing and analyzing customer data. By mapping those datasets and determining consumer behavior, advertisers and retailers could target more effectively through traditional mail, much the same way Facebook and Google target ads based on search, profile, email and other data.
Manabe described the obvious marketing opportunity as too big for USPS to pass up in the emerging digital world.
“As we know more and more about how consumers are traveling around and making their decisions, it behooves us to get involved and actually send them information to actually close the deal,” Manabe said. “For me, it’s all about speed and accuracy of the mail.”
via The USPS wants to mine and sell data about your mail
What this actually shows is just how out of touch and desperate for answers current USPS leadership is. If they had a clue about what was going on in the field they would know our employees are having to work longer hours to keep up with the work because they refuse to replace anyone. Throw into this the fact they intend to eliminate 10,000 more jobs in the next year and another 70,000 after that. With all this being the case, how are we supposed to delivery groceries or handle any other of the schemes they dream up to create more revenue? The answer is they have no idea how they would do this. Now toss in Manabe’s vague statements about new business opportunities. This is just pie in the sky nonsense she and the rest of USPS leadership spout to protect their own jobs. Their real focus is hacking more field jobs to make the numbers look better.
Dude , chill out, get a life! For someone so outraged about technology you just used it. Go back to Dancing with the Stars and a few Bud Lights.
Space age? I know most science fiction writers have painted dismal dystopian futures for mankind, or man-unkind, as you like it. The chief culprit was usually banked and stored information with total government control, and in many stories the machines and computers themselves became smarter than their programmers and created a machine controlled world.
With the Postal Service and especially management, the probability of machines being smarter than their programmers is much much higher, but it also goes without saying a baby’s busy box is smarter than most management.
With unprecedented reliance on social media and the internet in general, we have willingly and stupidly allowed our freedoms to be severely eroded in the name of technology and new playtoys that have reduced the written word to acronyms, coherent thought to less than 150 characters and the inability to do anything without a smart phone in hand, even having dinner with family, wives, husbands or friends. I find it appalling to go to eat and watch entire tables sit with their heads down texting all the way through the meal or talking on their cell phones.
In the event of a widespread power outage or massive server failure, these people will be absolutely helpless, unable to converse, write, or do anything that isn’t attached to a fucking screen. If I were a domestic terrorist, which I’m not, Mr. President, thanks for snooping, one sure way to really screw the nation up would be to bring down multiple servers, programs and communications equipment. It would take years to retrieve lost data, and reconfigure the computer grid. I would hate to see that happen, but it could and we should be aware of that possibility. Only a fool would put their most important information on a computer without having physical copies of the same thing, like titles for homes and cars, for example.
The 1st Amendment is in serious trouble, and the USPS should stay out of this social espionage.
I don’t trust Google or Facebook with such data.
I sure as hell won’t let the USPS, with their corruption and unethical behavoir, anywhere near it.
Well, I shouldn’t say that for the hard workers that still are employed, but the folks that are trying to change benefits. Vote the GOP out of office, then the Dem’s that are for this.
I am about to turn my back on the Postal Service if they cut our bennies.