I recently unsubscribed from a mailing list. 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 set 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 that 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 a potential problem.
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 generate a little 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 the 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.
About the Author
Mickey Chandler is a Consultant & Attorney with over 28 years of experience in Email Deliverability & Privacy Law. He has a strong background in email authentication infrastructure (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), ISP and mailbox provider relations, anti-spam policy and compliance, CAN-SPAM and state anti-spam law gained through overseeing the Abuse & Compliance team at Salesforce Marketing Cloud, originating the ISP relations role at Informz (now part of Higher Logic), and working in the fight against spam since 1997. He holds a B.A. in Government, a B.S. in Computer Information Systems, and a J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center. He is a certified CIPP/US professional and a certified CIPM professional.
