Recent gripe posts concerning Buy.com and others have sparked discussion on the subject of opting out from e-mail lists. We all know you shouldn't follow a spammer's opt-out instructions, but can you trust even "legitimate" vendors to respect your privacy?
Some readers said threatening to report online vendors as spammers is enough to do the trick. "I had a problem getting off a promotions list I thought I had opted out of from the start," wrote one reader. "Every time I told them to remove me they would reply that some emails were already in the system and might take as much as 6 weeks to clear. After several months of this nonsense I threatened to report them to my ISP as spammers. I haven't heard from them since."
Others take a more discriminating approach. "The only things that I opt-out of are things that I know I opt-in to," wrote another reader. "Anytime I subscribe to something, I drop it in a 'Registration' folder. If there is something that looks familiar that I want to no longer receive, I just check in that folder to see if I did subscribe, (or could have been subscribed, to it. If I did not, it gets filtered and blocked. If I did subscribe to it, or the site changed my preferences, I'll go cancel or change my preferences back."
But some say they don't trust anybody, not even me. "I don't opt-out of anything anymore," wrote one reader. I found out the hard way years ago that opting-out, or unsubscribing, was the wrong thing to do. That just confirms a good e-mail address and they - spammers -- just spread it around. Now I know your going to say that not everyone does this, but I won't take a chance on anyone. Sorry, Ed."
11:17:48 AM 
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