Swelling ranks of 'do not mail' lists prompt DMA response.(Special Report: List Management)(Direct Marketing Association)

Byline: CAROL KROL

Early this month, Catalog Choice passed the half-million member mark with its database of customers who have asked to be removed from catalog mailing lists. So it is not surprising that direct marketers and the Direct Marketing Association took notice.

Launched in October by the Ecology Center and endorsed by the National Wildlife Federation and the Natural Resources Defense Council, the nonprofit Catalog Choice (www.catalogchoice.org) is among a handful of new services that have popped up in the past year to help people reject unwanted direct mail. Environmental concerns that are in vogue these days have helped fuel that desire. A headline on the Catalog Choice home page exhorts people to "Simplify your life and save natural resources.''

Responding to the popularity of such sites, DMA has beefed up its own opt-out service (called Mail Preference Service), which enables customers to opt …