The Mailing Preference Service is a free service that can prevent your name is added to junk mail databases. You can also use the service to register a previous occupants' name at your current address.

The 'Your Choice Preference Scheme for Unaddressed Mail' is supposed to help householders reduce unaddressed junk mail delivered by distribution companies that are members of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). That sounds complicated, and it is.

The Direct Marketing Association has conceded that it can't substantiate its claim that unsolicited mail generates over £25 billion of postal sales per year. The lobby group now thinks junk mail is worth millions to the UK economy.

The Direct Marketing Association has made another attempt to quantify how much direct marketing contributes to the UK economy. The lobby group got more than what it bargained for.

A new opt-out website for unaddressed junk mail that was to be launched three months ago has been built. However, a Freedom of Information request has learned the website is unlikely to go live any time soon.

A new deal between the Government and junk mail industry will introduce a wide range of measures to help people cut back on junk mail. Amongst others, the industry will finally introduce an online 'one-point-stop' for opting out of receiving unsolicited mail.

The Direct Marketing Association has expelled list broker Data Providers UK from its membership for repeatedly breaching the Direct Marketing Code of Practice. The company and has ceased trading.

The Mailing Preference Service will no longer claim the opt-out scheme can remove people's names from up to 95% of direct mail lists. The Direct Marketing Association has agreed the claim was misleading and could not be substantiated.

The Direct Marketing Association is to introduce its own one-point-stop for registering with junk mail opt-out schemes. In the process the Mailing Preference Service may become an opt-in / opt-out scheme.

We are getting less leaflets through the door, according to the Direct Marketing Association. In 2008 'only' 9 billion pieces of unaddressed mail were distributed in the UK.