Opt-in Spam and the "Gotcha" Box

I get a lot of email with commercial content that I just can't remember ever specifically asking for.

The messages are all from companies that I have registered with or purchased things from in the past. However, I'm pretty much positive that I never pro-actively requested, "please send me stuff in email."

Some recent examples:

Sender	Subject
CNET	Will you buy movies twice?
Redhat Magazine	Best geek movies, One Laptop per Child
Compusa	Get a FREE Sprint Mobile Broadband Card TODAY!
Apple	Make music and podcasts on a Mac.
PC Connection	Think Savings - Great Savings on ThinkPad Notebooks

All of these messages have the underlying purpose of promoting commercial products or services. They are also all "CAN-SPAM compliant" - for whatever that's worth.

On a slightly positive note, almost any spam buster that's worth its keep will recognize and delete any message that feels the need to be "CAN-SPAM compliant."

Each message also claims to be "opt-in" - and I'm almost prone to believe it. It seems these days that most purchase or registration forms include what I call a, "gotcha box."

If you forget to uncheck the gotcha box, you get spammed.

OK, maybe it's not really spam - since you asked for it by "opting-in." However, I'm not sure if just failing to uncheck a box really constitutes asking for something.

Sometimes gotcha boxes are pretty straightforward:

If you notice the checkbox, and don't want their weekly spam (uh, I mean email notifications) - you'll probably uncheck it.

Some gotcha boxes are sneaky:

Sometimes a site uses a "disclaimer" that the service your about to receive is actually in exchange for getting spam. Often these are formatted not to be noticed:

By registering for Super Fun Forums, you agree to receive periodic special offers from Super Fun Forums' business partners and related companies.

The problem is that many users find their spam email stopper full of between 200 and 400 messages each day. Maybe 30 of them are "opt-in." It's almost not worth the effort to try to weed are which are preventable by unsubscribing, and which aren't.

Perhaps the next major piece of anti-spam legislation (CAN-SPAM 2.0) will standardize the gotcha box:

Note that it is unchecked by default.

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