ProQuo aims to benefit from stopping junk mail

October 22, 2007 | Chris Morrison | Comments | |

proquo0.JPGSurprisingly enough, in this day of blast emails and spammers, snail mail marketers are still a thriving breed. ProQuo is a startup, launching tomorrow, that hopes to help consumers curb their physical junk mail.

Interest in stopping marketers has been high for several years. From the National Do Not Call Registry to Firefox’s Adblock extension and email filters, consumers are fighting back against the marketing messages that seem to fill every corner of our lives. However, there are few obvious options to stop physical junk mail.

GreenDimes and 41 Pounds both offer to cut off unsolicited mail, but charge for their services. ProQuo is free; CEO Steve Gal told us he hopes consumers will use it selectively, choosing to let mail they might be interested in — anything from mortgage offers to coupons for the local grocery store — make it through the company’s “firewall”.

After initially blocking junk mail from the large, cobbled-together mailing lists that companies like Axciom sell to marketers, ProQuo will allow its users to selectively pick and choose offers they want, as well as choose whether or not to remain anonymous. “We’ll give people meaningful control, for the first time in their lives, over who has their information and who uses it,” says Gal.

Those customers who decide they want specific offers mailed to them will be able to allow, through ProQuo, some marketers to reach them. In turn, the company will receive some share of the ad revenue.

ProQuo won’t solicit customers to take offers, but will instead passively offer the service on their web page, where it hopes users will return each month to block more junk mail companies from reaching them. Whether anyone would want to receive mailed marketing offers remains to be seen.

As part of its initial service, ProQuo blocks 16 different marketing companies, including some of the largest senders of junk mail (although quite a few others remain). However, when we tried out the beta version of the service, we found the process still isn’t entirely painless.

Each of the 16 companies requires a couple clicks to confirm that you won’t want mail from them. For about a dozen, the process is just that simple. However, a handful demand that forms be printed, filled with personal information and mailed back to the companies. One marketing firm allows an online opt-out, but requires a $1 “anti-fraud” payment to “confirm” that you’re not faking someone’s identity — an obvious effort to discourage people from opting out.

When we asked Gal whether his company would have any problem convincing companies that get their revenue from selling customer lists to allow all of ProQuo’s customers to opt out, he said the larger junk mail companies may not go down without a fight — after all, they represent a $41 billion industry and have deep pockets to help keep their greedy hands in your mailbox.

The company, which has already taken a $5 million round of funding led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, is looking for more funding to expand its own marketing team, continue adding to its list of blocked companies, and prepare for any legal battles.

proquo1.JPG

Next Story: Amazon surges to #3 music store – and four online music stores could be roadkill
Previous Story: Cosmetic-procedures product maker BioForm aims for $127M IPO

Bookmark and Share

Tags: ,

Photo of Chris Morrison

About the Author, Chris Morrison

Chris Morrison writes about cleantech and environmental issues for VentureBeat, with occasional forays into gaming and semantic technology. He got his start writing about tech for Business 2.0 magazine, but quickly realized new media was the ticket when that institution closed its doors in 2007. Chris has also covered public equities and regulatory issues. He originally hails from southern Virginia, graduated from Evergreen State College in Washington, and now lives in San Francisco.

  • James Clark
    I've compared the sites Greendimes.com and 41pounds.org and by far the best online stopping junk mail service is StopTheJunkMail.com. The system creates a login that you can go back to update your removal list, 41pounds.org doesn't offer that. As a matter of fact, 41pounds.org is a joke if you look at their system. As for Greendimes, the process is not intuitive at all, plus they lack many of the catalogues that StopTheJunkMail has in their database. I will be interested in seeing what ProQuo does, but until then, I believe StopTheJunkMail.com is the best solution for the consumer.
  • Thanks, James. To add some perspective, GreenDimes is $15, StopTheJunkMail is $20 and up, and 41 Pounds is $41. I've heard elsewhere that GreenDimes is pretty good, so I'm not sure why anyone willing to pay would use 41 Pounds, as opposed to the first two.

    Of course, having to pay anything at all is a big barrier to a lot of people, which is what ProQuo is banking on.
  • Anon
    The marketers are *very* focused on sending to the right people -- spam in the physical world is expensive. The printers and shippers (generally) are just doing as told. Creating lists is done by 3rd party list houses. So accurate information will be welcomed by the marketers, if not the list providers.

    What seems strange is the plan that people will allow certain mail types. If the do-not-call list had options to allow certain types of telemarketers to call you, would you allow that?
  • Garetjax
    I have checked out a lot of sites that help people stop thier Junk Mail and I went with Myjunktree. They stop all the stuff ProQou does and more. They seem to have a database with over a 1000 catalogs that you can choose to stop. It is very easy to use and it worked for me. What makes it nice is I was able to sign up on the National Do Not Call list and order my free annual credit report from thier site. Worth taking a look at.
  • Tim
    I happen to be one of the owners of MyJunkTree and as a new company I search the web to see if we are getting any visibility out there and it seems the word is getting out. Thanks for the support.

    We launched the company because we were tired of all the junk mail we were receiving and we personally did not want to bounce all over the web to contact all the different companies to stop it all. First and foremost we wanted to let people choose what they wanted to let come to their home knowing that some people really do like some of the coupons and catalogs. So our clients choose what they want stopped.

    We also had to provide a service that is different than the other services out there, so here is what we offer:

    1. We have a database of over 1300 catalogs that you can choose to stop.
    2. We have over a 2000 charities/Non-Profits that you can stop solicitations from.
    3. Stop the delivery of the national phone directories.
    4. Stop the delivery of the weekly coupons.
    5. Stop the general credit card offers as well as the ones from your own major bank.
    6. Stop the miscellaneous junk mail from the data brokers.
    7. You can register on the National Do Not Call Registry from the website.
    8. You can order your no strings attached free annual credit report right from the website.
    9. We plant trees with every new membership.

    And, yes we are a paid service and yes you can do everything that we do for free, if you want to do all the research and spend the time contacting the companies yourself it can easily be done. We have just done all of the legwork for our clients and feel there is value in the service we provide.