photo credit: christopherdale

Opt-in is all the rage. Seth Godin says don’t interrupt your viewers, get their permission and you will have a dedicated channel. The major problem with permission marketing is, most of the time, you don’t actually have my permission.

I get e-mails from Target, TicketsWest, Wild Ginger Restaurant in Seattle and Wrrl because they not only ignored my initial subscription choices, but they also ignored subsequent opt-outs.

Excerpt of e-mail from Whrrl:

Hi Carlos,

It’s come to my attention that you had tried to turn off your notification settings

That about sums up many companies attitude toward “permission marketing” — that I need their permission to leave. That is bull. When I say NO notification I mean it, it is not a suggestion. I didn’t ask for notification, it was auto-checked on all registrations. I didn’t ask to get your new newsletter you ignored my subscription settings and sent it out just in case I changed my mind, that is not permission marketing that is SPAM. Today I even received a spam e-mail form an online acquaintance to ask if I want to be on his mailing list? No, but thank you for the personalized mailing.

Companies that auto-opt-in new users and customers are not following the spirit of opt-in. If you have a check box do not recheck it at every step in the process, and don’t change the settings on my account when you update your site.

I didn’t care the first time and I certainly don’t care now.