When Does Signing Up Become 'Opting In?'

AmyVernon writes "This piece from RWW got me thinking about whether, when you sign up for access to a site, you're actually signing up to get a slew of email spam from them. The single opt-in is still really popular, which I've noticed because I often check the box indicating I don't want further emails from a company or publisher. I always assume that giving my actual email address means I'm going to get spam-type emails from whomever. It still surprises me that most people don't. But it does raise a good question: Shouldn't you be able to sign up for something without automatically being signed up for a never-ending stream of 'updates?'"

Comments

Re:They now have a vested intrest in not spamming

[Opportunist]

This is very, very slowly getting through to the managers, though.

I had a boss not too long ago who simply assumed that everyone who ever bought a product wants to get our newsletter. I warned him that we might end up on blacklists, he chose to belittle my being a scaredy-cat and ignore me.

Last I heard is that he's fighting a losing uphill battle to get off the various spam blacklists because NONE of his emails get to their recipients anymore, and he noticed that it's not building trust in a company when you have to phone a possible business partner who has a commercial spam filter to tell him that he has to dig through his spam for your mail.