Ken Magill has a new article with quotes from the ESPC’s Trevor Hughes including this gem:

The FTC’s opt out clarification “complicates things in that it demands simplicity when simplicity may not be the status quo,” said Hughes.

The FTC is demanding simplicity? Well, DUH! CAN-SPAM is a law that is supposed to protect consumers (end users, targets, marks, cattle, or whatever else you want to call the people reading your marketing messages), not senders. And consumers want simplicity.

“You can’t authenticate, or require an e-mail or password, to get to the opt-out function,” he said. “You can’t put a [retention-offer] screen in front of the opt-out to try and do a save. You can offer it on the page, but you can’t do it on a screen in front of it.

“It’s got to be a single page, and that is not an ubiquitous practice in marketing,” he said. “There are a bunch of folks who do it on more than one page.”

Again, this is supposed to make it easier for consumers, not marketers. Once you get over the confusion caused by your demands that the FTC interpret CAN-SPAM in a way solely to make things easier for you as a marketer will any of this begin to make sense. Evidently, Mr. Hughes hasn’t made that mental leap yet. But, it’s only been five years.

If someone doesn’t want on your list, it’s probably not because they forgot just how valuable your offerings are. It’s probably because they don’t consider them valuable enough.

The lesson here is to make it as easy as possible to get off of that list. Your former subscribers will thank you for it and besides, it’s the law.