Your Image Here: Personalized PC Postage Program ReturnsYour Image Here: Personalized PC Postage Program Returns

The U.S. Postal Service's immensely popular PC photo and imaging stamps program is being re-launched in test mode, and this time it hopes its vendors can stop people from abusing the service.

Stamps.com, leading provider of last year's two-month test, is already taking orders for its PhotoStamps postage. The USPS advertised for request for proposals (RFPs) in Wednesday's Federal Register, but Stamps.com--already approved by the postal service to offer its online postage--jumped the same day, offering consumers the ability to turn their wedding pictures, baby pictures, and other images into postage.

The USPS said it is seeking vendors who can use PC postage technology to personalize postage with pictures and images for First-Class, Priority, and Express Mail. This phase of the program test will be for personal mail exclusively, and will begin next month and continue until May 2006.

"Customized postage allows us to make mail more valuable and more meaningful to people," said USPS vice president Nicholas Barranca in a statement. General usage of the government postal service has been declining slightly and Barranca sees the popularity of the PC postage program as a way to reinvigorate USPS service offerings.

A relative handful of users abused the program during last year's test by getting some notorious personalities through the Stamps.com program. Among the images that the Smoking Gun Web site slipped past Stamps.com were images of Monica Lewinsky's infamous blue dress and executed Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Policing of images is expected to be much tighter in the new test.

The USPS said its role is simply to authorize and monitor qualified providers, although authorized vendors are expected to generate "high quality, computer-based postage or metered postage and demonstrate they routinely use secure encryption technology to protect postal revenue."

Barranca added, "While we continue to strive to meet the needs of our customers, we want to make sure that any product also meets our standards for quality and security."

PhotoStamps president and CEO Ken McBride noted in a statement that his company's service became immediately popular with consumers who bought more than 2.75 million individual stamps.

Using the Internet, consumers upload photos and images to Stamps.com. In return, they get sheets of 20 personalized stamps. A sheet with twenty 37-cent stamps is priced at $16.99. Prices drop for higher volumes.

Stamps.com is offering "first day of release" collectable editions of stamps purchased before May 17, the day the stamps can actually be used as valid postage.