Tech firms object to Postal Service e-commerce plan

Several technology companies and associations are ramping up their campaign against the Postal Service's entry into e-commerce, and have criticized the agency's announcement this month that it will offer consumers electronic bill payment services.

Led by the Computer and Communications Industry Association and with the support of Intuit, H&R Block and Yahoo, the groups have slammed the government for breaking an Eisenhower-era executive order that forbids government agencies from competing with the private sector in offering commercial products and services.

In addition to decrying the postal service's entry into e-payments, the technology groups have criticized the agency's use of the "USPS.com" domain and an Internal Revenue Service plan to launch commercial electronic tax preparation services.

Calling the entry into e-payments "a direct government attack on private markets," CCIA President Ed Black said, "the government proposal to become a publicly funded competitor with electronic commerce industries is a dangerous scheme." Such activities are forbidden by Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76, issued by President Dwight Eisenhower but sustained by every subsequent administration, he said.

CCIA, which joined the Business Software Alliance, the American Electronics Association and the Government Electronics and Information Technologies Association in an unsuccessful last-minute attempt to persuade the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce to take up the issue, also raised privacy objections to the Postal Service's announcement.

"We are certain that many online customers would be reluctant to provide personal and financial information to a '.com' that would be required to turn over any information to another government agency or investigator that requests it without judicial process or even a subpoena," Black said. "The privacy implications are frightening."

But a Postal Service spokesman dismissed the criticisms as unfounded. "We are the channel that Americans overwhelmingly use to receive and pay their bills," said Greg Frey, referring to the $17 billion in postage currently spent to send bills via post. He described the move to electronic payments as an evolution of the agency's mandate to provide universal postal service for all Americans.

The dispute over the Postal Service's e-commerce activities is expected to figure into the ongoing debate to pass The Postal Modernization Act, H.R. 22, introduced by Government Reform Subcommittee on the Postal Service Chairman John McHugh, R-NY. Strongly supported by the Postal Service, the measure would authorize the agency to establish a separate corporation for e-commerce and related activities that would be subject to normal commercial laws.

"We see that as carte blanche for them to get into the Internet, or even to open up grocery stores under such a broad grant of authority," said CCIA's Jason Mahler.