The web community is currently in an apprehensive uproar over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which threatens to create an Internet blacklist that operates at the DNS level in a misguided attempt to curb piracy. It’s bad news — many of Silicon Valley’s largest tech companies are speaking out against it, and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt just went on the record calling it draconian and censorship.
Now the folks over at SendWrite, a startup that makes it easy to quickly send people physical letters (no stamp-licking required), is offering to extend its services to anyone who would like to send their Congressperson a real, physical letter denouncing SOPA. Free of charge.
The service is easy to use: go to this page, select your congressperson from the drop-down menu, and fill in a personal message (it gives you a rough outline on what you should consider including, as well as some additional tips).
Enter your return address (you should provide a real one, or the Congressperson may not pay attention to it), and you’re set — SendWrite will print it out and send it. You’ll even see a preview of what your words will look like once they’re printed out on a card.
SendWrite is offsetting the costs of the campaign by prompting users to make donations.
Update: SendWrite has cut this off at 3,000 letters (which they’re in the process of sending).
We’ve received over 3000 thoughtful and personal letters telling congress to stop SOPA. We’ve also received thousands of dollars in donations. We are suprised by the response and support you’ve shown.
We’ve decided apply the brakes so we can ensure a high level of service for the cards we’ve already received. It’s going to take us a little time to process and mail all these letters, so please be patient. If you supplied us with your email address you will receive a notification when your card is mailed out.
If you haven’t had a chance to write congress, please head over to AmericanCensorship.org to take action.
Respectfully and sincerely,
Cole Krumbholz
Founder, SendWrite.com