The Scan Clan

Seattle start-up exports its paper mill killer.

By Karen Quinn

EARTH CLASS MAIL may soon need a Swiss bank account. The Seattle company that intercepts your snail-mail, emails you a scan of the envelopes for review, and lets you decide if you want the letters opened and scanned in their entirety, just hit the mail service mother lode: The Swiss postal system.

The tree-loving sovereign nation of Switzerland has been slowly digitizing its mail through its native company Swiss Post Box, which signed a licensing deal to use Earth Class Mail’s technology. The selling point: the city of Seattle. “People expect stories like Earth Class Mail to come out of Seattle,” explains Earth Class Mail spokesperson David Widner, “people think, ‘Oh, you’re in Seattle, you must know what you’re doing.’”