So I have been unable to quickly confirm this on the post office directly, but the commonly cited rule online is quoted as 917.243(b).

If we can believe the multiple sources and the rule hasn’t been changed, I recalled it a little incorrectly. Using such a letter as a label is legal but if they deem it an improper usage, like directly mailing a brick with the letter taped to it, they reserve the right to just dispose of it. No trouble for the sender though, so it can’t hurt.

It’s not legal anymore but that doesn’t mean you’ll get caught

It’ll stick anyway because Microsoft is not about to let all that data go. It’s great for training better AI and for advertising, and those seem to be the only businesses in big tech lately.

Like that, but filtered through an AI.

Features: questions like “Hey, where’s that file I worked on last week”, “What was that recipe I found the other day” or “hey can you pull up a copy of this document from 3 days ago so I can compare them” all work. Its nice to be able to just do that, and you can apply all the normal AI editing things to them, too. They’re all available.

Downside: a black box AI system the user doesn’t have full control over has the right to record literally everything you do on your computer. They promise its local, for now, but not only is Microsoft not trustworthy in that regard, even if they’re honest we don’t know if or when they’ll change that policy. I would not be surprised if the next step was “A small amount of none identifiable information is transmitted to our servers” snuck in, and they used that permission to have Microsoft Recall answer queries for advertisers directly, technically without ever identifying you. Advertisers could directly ask your own computer for all the info they’ll ever need.

And, yes, Mac still has Time Machine. Linux has its own version, too. Both are very handy and I’ve used them each personally. In my personal opinion, a basic search with time machine does enough of Microsoft recall’s job that I’m not going near it, but honestly at least you’re getting functionality out of them selling your data, so it could be worse.

Worked for me.