I unsubscribed from a mailing list recently. When I did, I was confronted with the following message:

We’re sorry to see you go.

You should be aware that it could take up to ten business days to completely remove your address from our lists.

That’s a pretty standard disclaimer that complies with the time limits put in place by the CAN-SPAM Act. So, what’s the big deal?

The “big deal” wasn’t anything that I thought about until last Friday. It was then that I saw a tweet. Hoon Park said something that really resonated with me:

I try to unsubscribe, but if you continue to send me email, I will mark you as spam. I’m not sorry if it messes up your deliverability.

Now, thinking back to that disclaimer I saw, I noticed that there is a potential problem there.

When my dad unsubscribes from something, he expects that to be immediate. I suspect that your dad, your mother-in-law, and your weird Aunt Millie would all agree with that, even if they have never agreed on anything else, ever before, maybe in their entire lives. So, when he gets that next email it’s spam to him, and he’s not afraid to tell his provider so.

But, the law says that you have 10 days to remove his address.

Perhaps it would be helpful if we stopped thinking of that window as an opportunity to make a little bit of revenue before the fun comes to an end. Maybe it would help if we started looking at that ten day window as an opportunity to stop damaging our reputation.

Why? Because that recipient thinks that they have tried to opt-out. And they really aren’t sorry if your reputation is damaged because you mailed them some more during that 10 day window.