The other monopoly, often called the “letter mail monopoly,” or the Private Express Statutes, was first enacted in its earliest form in 1792 and restricts private delivery services of certain matter (see ).Īlthough there are two separate monopolies, it is often hard to discuss them separately because they both were enacted to support the key goals of providing the USPS with a revenue stream to support the cost of universal service. The mailbox monopoly, mentioned above, means that only the USPS can deposit anything in the “US mail” box. There is much confusion about the USPS’ monopolies - that’s right, there are two separate USPS monopolies.

In passing the law, Congress noted that these behaviors were depriving the then-named Post Office Department of needed revenue and also resulting in the “stuffing of letter boxes with extraneous matter.” The US Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the mailbox restriction in 1981. The event was a parallel effort to an ongoing study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) requested by Congress to look at the USPS’ monopolies in today’s competitive marketplace.įor those who don’t know the history - and this is an extremely abbreviated version of what many have written entire books about - the USPS mailbox monopoly law was passed in 1934 after years of tumultuous US history and the growing use of private messengers/carriers delivering statements, circulars, bills, and other pieces into the mailbox. I recently had the interesting experience of helping to organize a one-day event sponsored by PostalVision 2020, which brought together members of our postal ecosystem to talk about the USPS’ mailbox monopoly.

This article originally appeared in the March/April issue of Mailing Systems Technology.

Usps dropbox parcels