THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Saturday, August 17, 1996             TAG: 9608170257
SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A2   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: THE WASHINGTON POST 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:   44 lines

POSTAL SERVICE SAYS ITS SALE OF ADDRESS LISTS IS LEGAL

You move and soon, your new mailbox is filled with advertising from lots of businesses. How did they learn of your new address?

Chances are, the U.S. Postal Service told them.

The General Accounting Office said this week that the post office has done this for years, even though two federal laws expressly prohibit federal agencies from selling or giving out names and addresses of individuals without their permission. Postal officials say the agency is not breaking the law.

Here's how it all works:

Every two weeks, the postal service updates its master list of addresses. Typically, between 1.1 million and 1.5 million individual address changes are included in that update.

Two dozen large mailing firms with which the postal service has contracted get the update. Those firms, in turn, are supposed to integrate the update with their master lists of every household in the United States. The addresses, complete down to the ZIP code-plus-four digits, are sold to advertisers.

It doesn't take a computer genius to compare the old list with the new list and figure out who has moved. These ``new movers lists,'' according to privacy law expert Robert Gellman, are ``a hot item'' in the mailing industry because those who have just moved tend to be in the market for lots of big-ticket items.

As far as the postal service is concerned, it is merely expediting mail delivery, cutting down on the $1.5 billion it costs to forward nearly 5 billion letters a year that have the wrong address.

Postmaster General Marvin T. Runyon said the postal service ``does not share GAO's opinion that such a secondary use of address corrections is inconsistent with the limitations imposed by the Privacy Act.''

Rep. Gary A. Condit, D-Calif., long has urged that Congress resolve the problem by specifically permitting the postal service to sell the lists, but at the same time allowing individuals to have their names removed from any list circulated outside the postal service itself.

The postal service calls that proposal ``impractical.''

KEYWORDS: U.S. POSTAL SERVICE by CNB