The tidal wave of direct mail. (satire on direct mail advertising) (column)

A while ago, my old mate Nick Talamo of Printronic suddenly transformed himself into Nicholas di Talamo. I suspected something was afoot, and I was right: he was preparing a crusade against the proposed EC legislation on data protection -- and as you know, crusaders are traditionally of noble provenance.

There have been howls of dismay about this legislation, the thinking behind which derives largely from the most restrictive European state: Germany. In effect it says you can only mail people if they've specifically said they want you to; and firms cannot pass on thjeir information about customers to others.

Now those hordes of you out there who don't like direct …