Customer Support Ruling

Subscription Order Forms – Free Matter for the Blind
Updated October 1996

PS-277 (703.5)

This Customer Support Ruling provides a determination on the mailability of a Periodicals subscription order form as Free Matter for the Blind and Other Physically Handicapped Persons.

This ruling allows a publication sent as Free Matter for the Blind or Other Physically Handicapped Persons to include a subscription order form for that publication.

Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) 703.5.2.2d requires that material mailed as free matter contain no advertising.  The postal definition in DMM 707.4.13.1d states the term advertising includes "a newspaper's or periodical's advertisement of its own services or issues, or any other business of the publisher, whether in display advertising or reading matter."  However, DMM 707.3.3.4 provides that orders for subscriptions are permissible enclosures in Periodicals mail.  For Periodicals purposes, when determining the percentage of advertising a subscription order form for the host publication is not counted as either advertising or nonadvertising.

To maintain consistency in applying postal regulations, a publication eligible to be mailed as Free Matter for the Blind or Other Physically Handicapped Persons may include a subscription order form provided the form is for the host publication and no promotional material is included.

(Signed)
Anita J. Bizzotto
Manager
Mailing Standards
United States Postal Service
Washington DC 20260-3436