Um, no.

[yendi]

I somehow got on a the assorted email lists for BioTechniques magazine (likely because I filled out a survey at a tradeshow).

Since the magazine has nothing to offer me, I went to their site to opt out.

And got this message:

Thank you!

Your request has been received.

Please allow 4 to 6 weeks to be removed from our lists.

Excuse me? 4-6 weeks to opt out of email lists?

That's be a "no." A "hell, no," in fact. It's bad enough that most lists take 24-48 hours for an opt-out to kick in.

One day, then anything I receive from them gets marked spam.

Comments

[songwind.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much my attitude as well. Any email list that says anything more than "okay, no more email for you" gets labeled a spammer.

[dustyskinandall.livejournal.com]

And you should mark it as spam!! That's terrible practice, and the exact reason people should use companies like mine (MailChimp) to automatically manage their lists. Yeesh.

That means it's some person's job to manually go through their entire database and remove unsubs. Ridiculous.

[dustyskinandall.livejournal.com]

Also, according to federal regulations, that's illegal.

To quote the Federal Can-Spam Act of 2003:
"Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your commercial email. When you receive an opt-out request, the law gives you 10 business days to stop sending email to the requestor's email address. You cannot help another entity send email to that address, or have another entity send email on your behalf to that address. Finally, it's illegal for you to sell or transfer the email addresses of people who choose not to receive your email, even in the form of a mailing list, unless you transfer the addresses so another entity can comply with the law."

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I confess I used to be mildly irritated when I had to confirm my subscription to mailing lists, but I have a simple, five-letter Gmail address that is CONSTANTLY signed up for things either by people screwing up their own addresses or by spammers or unethical companies. So I'm always having to click "unsubscribe" and messages like that make me insane.

Companies who don't include a double opt-in (confirmation) or who have a ridiculous waiting period like that are really cutting off their noses to spite their faces, by guaranteeing that they're going to be marked spam so many times that many mail programs will eventually blacklist them.