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You also can't automatically opt people into a mailing list but nearly every company does it. I really wish the government would enforce CAN-SPAM.

JoBrad 5y ago
You can auto-check the "sign me up" option, but you have to present it and allow the user to avoid it. Perhaps I've insulated myself a bit too much, but I haven't seen a signup form in the past few years that doesn't follow this pattern, and allow me to avoid signing up.
- djbusby 5y ago
  Redfin does this, has some forms that start a process with your email, tells you you'll be on a list, no box to uncheck, terrible/dark unsubscribe process
  - cyral 5y ago
    Express is sending me promotional emails with no unsubscribe link. They even justify it saying it is a “transactional email as part of their loyalty program” (it is not transactional, it’s just ads for sales) and the only way to stop them is to call their customer service to remove yourself from their loyalty program. Has to be the most blatant violation of CAN-SPAM I’ve seen. They used to have an unsubscribe button too, but it never did anything.
- tailspin2019 5y ago
  Many signup forms do seem to use this pattern. I never leave it in the opt-in state. Ever. And a vast number of these companies go ahead and email me anyway. Sometimes they’re 100% marketing emails and they’ve just blatantly ignored my opt out, other times the emails are under the guise of being related to my account/purchase as opposed to marketing (eg those annoying drip feed “getting started with our product” daily emails) but the lines are very (deliberately) blurred. In either case, the amount of inbound communication seems very heavily geared towards benefiting the company in being able to send out marketing messages / increase “engagement” as opposed to being actually necessary or useful from the point of view of a customer. These thoroughly annoy me. Edit: ironically Cloudflare is among the few companies who I do willingly receive marketing emails from - but even so, if the unsubscribe flow is as OP described, this is not really acceptable and needs looking at.
  - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
    That's what the spam button is for. Enough spam reports causes them real financial costs.

JoBrad 5y ago

You can auto-check the "sign me up" option, but you have to present it and allow the user to avoid it. Perhaps I've insulated myself a bit too much, but I haven't seen a signup form in the past few years that doesn't follow this pattern, and allow me to avoid signing up.

djbusby 5y ago
Redfin does this, has some forms that start a process with your email, tells you you'll be on a list, no box to uncheck, terrible/dark unsubscribe process
- cyral 5y ago
  Express is sending me promotional emails with no unsubscribe link. They even justify it saying it is a “transactional email as part of their loyalty program” (it is not transactional, it’s just ads for sales) and the only way to stop them is to call their customer service to remove yourself from their loyalty program. Has to be the most blatant violation of CAN-SPAM I’ve seen. They used to have an unsubscribe button too, but it never did anything.
tailspin2019 5y ago
Many signup forms do seem to use this pattern. I never leave it in the opt-in state. Ever. And a vast number of these companies go ahead and email me anyway. Sometimes they’re 100% marketing emails and they’ve just blatantly ignored my opt out, other times the emails are under the guise of being related to my account/purchase as opposed to marketing (eg those annoying drip feed “getting started with our product” daily emails) but the lines are very (deliberately) blurred. In either case, the amount of inbound communication seems very heavily geared towards benefiting the company in being able to send out marketing messages / increase “engagement” as opposed to being actually necessary or useful from the point of view of a customer. These thoroughly annoy me. Edit: ironically Cloudflare is among the few companies who I do willingly receive marketing emails from - but even so, if the unsubscribe flow is as OP described, this is not really acceptable and needs looking at.
- hackerfromthefu 5y ago
  That's what the spam button is for. Enough spam reports causes them real financial costs.