Earlier this week, TheSmokingGun.com ran an amusing piece, “Stamps of Approval,” criticizing the U.S. Postal Service’s recently launched 3-month pilot program for personalized postage. The service, which is being provided in partnership with Stamps.com, is called PhotoStamps. and, for roughly double the cost of a regular stamp, allows consumers to upload any image to be printed and sent back to the consumer in the form of customized stamps. The catch is that Stamps.com can turn down any submission that does not fall within certain guidelines it has established. According to Ken McBride, CEO of Stamps.com, in addition to refusing any submission that contains intellectual property not owned by the submitter, “We don’t really accept anything that as a private company we’d consider objectionable or controversial…nudity, violence, racism, sexism — the standard list of things, not anything rude or obscene.”

As TheSmokingGun rightly, of course, points out, Stamps.com’s guidelines allow for a great deal of subjectivity - what’s objectionable to Ken McBride may not be objectionable to you, me and 290 million other Americans, and vice versa. TheSmokingGun cleverly presses this point by running a series of “interesting” images through the PhotoStamp process. Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress (splattered with Bill Clinton’s DNA) made it past the censors. Unabomber Ted Kaczynski did not.

All of this raises the question: Is the PhotoStamps program a good idea, albeit one that is somewhat flawed in its current implementation, or is the basic idea of allowing people to create personalized stamps itself flawed – an affront to the 225-year old American institution that is the U.S. Postal Service?

TheSmokingGun seems to be taking the position that personalized stamps is simply a bad idea (“Nobody’s dog deserves to be on a stamp.”). I, on the other hand, say “bravo” to the US Postal Service for embracing the power of digital technology and the Internet and for coming up with what is at least an innovative solution for helping to deal with their looming fiscal crisis.* The USPS delivers nearly 100 billion pieces of First Class mail per year. If even 0.01% of that volume converts to personalized stamps, USPS would bring in an additional roughly $2.0 million per year (assuming each stamp costs an extra $0.37 and USPS keeps 60% of the revenue in their arrangement with Stamps.com). Stamps.com just reported that 40,000 sheets (800,000 stamps) of personalized stamps have been ordered since the August 10th launch of the program.

I would, however, suggest that one simple modification be made to the current PhotoStamps service. Why leave the decision making process regarding which pictures are worthy of being placed on a stamp up to the whims of a handful of people from a private company. I say let the people decide. All submissions should be posted on PhotoStamps.com for public viewing. During a two week voting period following submission, any registered visitor (register with only a valid email address) to the site can place their vote - “yes” or “no” – to determine whether a particular image should be allowed to appear on a stamp. Submissions must receive a minimum of five votes to be considered. Any image that receives at least 50.1% “yes” votes will be allowed to be printed on a stamp.

Oh, and by the way, I hear the U.S. Treasury is looking for some additonal funds these days…

* It is widely acknowledged that the current business model of the Postal Service is not sustainable going into the 21st century. Electronic diversion of mail volumes has caused a substantial and likely irreplaceable decline in first class mail. This trend is expected to continue. The USPS ended 2003 faced with substantial liabilities, including $7.3 billion of debt, $7.1 billion for unfunded workers’ compensation costs, $5.8 billion for unfunded pension liabilities, and roughly $60 billion in unfunded post-retirement healthcare costs. (Source: John W. Snow, Secretary of the Treasury, Hearing Testimony on Reform of the United States Postal Service - March 23, 2004)