Unsubscribe Update 


It's been almost three weeks now since I went on an unsubscribe binge to clear my INBOX of "legitimate" bulk email. That is, messages that I may have signed up for in the past or got subscribed through software registration, etc. This is stuff like Microsoft's little updates on their office products, Palm's developer newsletters, etc. You can read about what a pain in the ass it was to actually unsubscribe in some of my previous rants here and here. Three weeks, and now I present the results.

Out of all of the unsubscribes I performed (13, including the ridiculous processes from Microsoft) only two have not sent me email in the past week. These two "winners" include Microsoft (despite the dumb-ass unsubscribe process) and a local business magazine (Digital IQ.)

Every single other unsubscribe has continued to send me email, with no hint that I ever unsubscribed. These aren't all little crappy companies, either. We're talking people like Palm - I'm signed up through two separate email addresses with them. Both were unsubscribed, and I just received today two identical emails from them on each of the addresses. Dell - a huge company with the resources to make this work - is still sending me advertising as of yesterday, despite my opt-out attempts.

And there are many more, and they all suck. My company spends *piles* of time making sure that people who are unsubscribed stay unsubscribed and to make sure our web forms all work. These people pay lip-service to being legitimate, but their poor efforts show otherwise.  

 

Posted: Wed - February 23, 2005 at 03:48 PM          

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