Opt-out

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The term opt-out refers to several methods by which individuals can avoid receiving unsolicited product or service information. This option is usually associated with direct marketing campaigns such as e-mail marketing or direct mail. A list of those who have opted out is called a Robinson list.

Contents

Telemarketing

The U.S. Federal Government created the United States National Do Not Call Registry to reduce the telemarketing calls consumers receive at home. Initially numbers listed on the registry were due to be kept for five years but will now remain on it permanently due to the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007, which became law in February 2008. [1]

The UK's Direct Marketing Association operates a voluntary opt-out scheme through the Telephone Preference Service, which was established in 1995. While the service will reduce unsolicited calls it does not stop solicited calls, market research calls, silent calls or overseas calls. [2]

Canada's National Do Not Call List operates an opt-out list which allows consumers to register their wishes not to have telemarketing calls. Charities, newspapers, and pollsters are exempt although each of these is required to keep their own do not call list that consumers can be added to at their request. [3]

Australia has a national Do Not Call Register. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is responsible for the register under the Do Not Call Register Act 2006. In order to be included on the register, a telephone number must be used or maintained primarily for private or domestic purposes, or exclusively for transmitting and/or receiving faxes. Government body numbers and emergency services numbers are also able and numbers can be removed at any time.[ citation needed ]

E-mail marketing

In e-mail marketing, a clickable link or "opt-out button" may be included to notify the sender that the recipient wishes to receive no further e-mails. While 95% of all commercial e-mails from reputable bulk emailers with an unsubscribe feature indeed work in this manner, [4] unscrupulous senders and spammers can also include a link that purports to unsubscribe a recipient; clicking the link or button confirms to the originator that the e-mail address used was a valid one, opening the door for further unsolicited e-mail. [5]

Online advertising

Targeted advertising and behavioral targeting are a series of technologies and techniques used mainly in online advertising to increase the effectiveness of advertisements. By capturing data generated by website and landing page visitors, advertisements are placed so as to reach consumers based on various traits such as demographics, psychographics, behavioral variables (such as product purchase history), and firmographic variables or other second-order activities which serve as a proxy for these traits.[ citation needed ]

Opt-out cookies

Many of the biggest third-party ad-serving companies offer opt-out cookies to users. Opt-out cookies are cookies created by ad-serving companies to enable the user to block and prevent the advertising network from installing future tracking cookies. Opt-out cookies are server specific, meaning that they only block cookies of a specific ad-serving company and won't block cookies from other companies. To do generalized blocking, the users must manage their cookies via their own browser's cookie settings.

Do Not Track HTTP header

Do Not Track (DNT) is an HTTP header field that requests that a web application or website to disable its direct or cross-site user tracking of an individual user. The header field name is DNT and it currently accepts three values:

DNT is not widely adopted by the industry, and honoring DNT requests is not obligatory.

Wi-Fi positioning system

Wi-Fi-based positioning systems take advantage of the rapid growth of wireless access points in urban areas and are used by companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft, to obtain data about their customers' locations, in order to provide a better service. The localization technique is based on measuring the intensity of the received signal and access-point "fingerprinting". However, some users have expressed concern about their privacy being affected by this type of unsolicited positioning system, and have asked for opt-out alternatives.

Google suggested the creation of a unified approach for opting-out from taking part in Wi-Fi-based positioning systems. Suggesting the usage of the word "_nomap" (Underscore and nomap) append to a wireless access point's SSID to exclude it from Google's WPS database. [6] [7]

Postal service

Credit card offers

Each year American consumers receive several billion written offers of credit or insurance they did not request. In many cases, the senders have prescreened the recipients for creditworthiness and suitability using consumer credit records in the files of consumer reporting agencies.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) permits creditors and insurers to use CRA information as a basis for sending unsolicited firm offers of credit or insurance, also known as prescreened solicitations, to consumers who meet certain criteria, but only within limits specified in the act. The FCRA also provides a mechanism by which consumers can elect not to receive such solicitations by directing CRAs to exclude their names and addresses from lists provided by these agencies for sending prescreened solicitations. Consumers who choose to have their names removed from lists used for prescreened solicitations may well still receive offers of credit or insurance by mail or telephone, but such offers will not be based on the credit records maintained by the CRAs. [8]

People are able to opt out of receiving any offers from U.S. national credit bureaus. [9]

Unsolicited direct marketing mail (a.k.a. "junk mail")

In the United States, the Data & Marketing Association's (DMA) Mail Preference Service provides an opt-out service. [10] The consumer's name is added to a "delete" file which is made available to direct-mail marketers. This process does not cover opting out of Bulk Mail also known as Standard mail or Current Resident Mail, which will require opting out on a company by company basis. [11] There is a $2 charge to register online and there is a $3 charge to register by regular mail. There is another service to stop mail to deceased people. Registration will not stop mailings from organizations that are not registered with the DMA. [12] DirectMail.com offers a similar service. [13]

Arbitration

Some contracts with arbitration clauses have terms that state that a party may reject the arbitration clause within a specified time frame of accepting the contract. [14] : 31 

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Telemarketing</span> Method of direct marketing

Telemarketing is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits prospective customers to buy products, subscriptions or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call. Telemarketing can also include recorded sales pitches programmed to be played over the phone via automatic dialing.

The National Do Not Call Registry is a database maintained by the United States federal government, listing the telephone numbers of individuals and families who have requested that telemarketers not contact them. Certain callers are required by federal law to respect this request. Separate laws and regulations apply to robocalls in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CAN-SPAM Act of 2003</span> American law to regulate bulk e-mail

The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act of 2003 is a law passed in 2003 establishing the United States' first national standards for the sending of commercial e-mail. The law requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce its provisions. Introduced by Republican Conrad Burns, the act passed both the House and Senate during the 108th United States Congress and was signed into law by President George W. Bush in December 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mobile phone spam</span> Unwanted communication through a mobile phone

Mobile phone spam is a form of spam, directed at the text messaging or other communications services of mobile phones or smartphones. As the popularity of mobile phones surged in the early 2000s, frequent users of text messaging began to see an increase in the number of unsolicited commercial advertisements being sent to their telephones through text messaging. This can be particularly annoying for the recipient because, unlike in email, some recipients may be charged a fee for every message received, including spam. Mobile phone spam is generally less pervasive than email spam, where in 2010 around 90% of email is spam. The amount of mobile spam varies widely from region to region. In North America, mobile spam steadily increased after 2008 and accounted for half of all mobile phone traffic by 2019. In parts of Asia up to 30% of messages were spam in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Email spam</span> Unsolicited electronic advertising by e-mail

Email spam, also referred to as junk email, spam mail, or simply spam, is unsolicited messages sent in bulk by email (spamming). The name comes from a Monty Python sketch in which the name of the canned pork product Spam is ubiquitous, unavoidable, and repetitive. Email spam has steadily grown since the early 1990s, and by 2014 was estimated to account for around 90% of total email traffic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Direct marketing</span> Model of communicating discounts and other sales offers

Direct marketing is a form of communicating an offer, where organizations communicate directly to a pre-selected customer and supply a method for a direct response. Among practitioners, it is also known as direct response marketing. By contrast, advertising is of a mass-message nature.

Junk faxes are a form of telemarketing where unsolicited advertisements are sent via fax transmission. Junk faxes are the faxed equivalent of spam or junk mail. Proponents of this advertising medium often use the terms broadcast fax or fax advertising to avoid the negative connotation of the term junk fax. Junk faxes are generally considered to be a nuisance since they waste toner, ink and paper in fax machines.

Email marketing is the act of sending a commercial message, typically to a group of people, using email. In its broadest sense, every email sent to a potential or current customer could be considered email marketing. It involves using email to send advertisements, request business, or solicit sales or donations. Email marketing strategies commonly seek to achieve one or more of three primary objectives, to building loyalty, trust, or brand awareness. The term usually refers to sending email messages with the purpose of enhancing a merchant's relationship with current or previous customers, encouraging customer loyalty and repeat business, acquiring new customers or convincing current customers to purchase something immediately, and sharing third-party ads.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cold calling</span> Form of business solicitation

Cold calling is the solicitation of business from potential customers who have had no prior contact with the salesperson conducting the call. It is an attempt to convince potential customers to purchase either the salesperson's product or service. Generally, it is referred as an over-the-phone process, making it a source of telemarketing, but can also be done in-person by door-to-door salespeople. Though cold calling can be used as a legitimate business tool, scammers can use cold calling as well.

A Robinson list is an opt-out list of people who do not wish to receive marketing transmissions. The marketing can be via e-mail, postal mail, telephone, or fax. In each case, contact details will be placed on a blacklist. The name "Robinson" is derived from Robinson Crusoe, a fictional character shipwrecked and stranded for years on a remote island.

A squeeze page is a landing page created to solicit opt-in email addresses from prospective subscribers.

A robocall is a phone call that uses a computerized autodialer to deliver a pre-recorded message, as if from a robot. Robocalls are often associated with political and telemarketing phone campaigns, but can also be used for public service or emergency announcements. Multiple businesses and telemarketing companies use auto-dialing software to deliver prerecorded messages to millions of users. Some robocalls use personalized audio messages to simulate an actual personal phone call. The service is also viewed as prone to association with scams.

The Data & Marketing Association, also known as the DMA, is a trade organization for marketers. In 2017 their web site stated "Yes, 100 years ago we were the Direct Mail Marketing Association and then the Direct Marketing Association. Now we embrace ..."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive 2002</span>

Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive2002/58/EC on Privacy and Electronic Communications, otherwise known as ePrivacy Directive (ePD), is an EU directive on data protection and privacy in the digital age. It presents a continuation of earlier efforts, most directly the Data Protection Directive. It deals with the regulation of a number of important issues such as confidentiality of information, treatment of traffic data, spam and cookies. This Directive has been amended by Directive 2009/136, which introduces several changes, especially in what concerns cookies, that are now subject to prior consent.

OptOutPrescreen.com is a joint venture among Equifax, Experian, Innovis, and TransUnion, allowing customers to opt out of receiving credit card solicitations by mail.

<i>Register.com v. Verio</i> American legal case

Register.com v. Verio, 356 F.3d 393, was a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that addressed several issues relevant to Internet law, such as browse wrap licensing, trespass to servers, and enforcement of the policies of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The decision upheld the ruling of a lower court which prevented a provider of web development services from automatically harvesting publicly available registration data from a domain name registrar's servers for advertising purposes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Do Not Track</span> HTTP header field proposed in 2009

Do Not Track (DNT) is a formerly official HTTP header field, designed to allow internet users to opt-out of tracking by websites—which includes the collection of data regarding a user's activity across multiple distinct contexts, and the retention, use, or sharing of data derived from that activity outside the context in which it occurred.

Graymail is solicited bulk email messages that don't fit the definition of email spam. Recipient interest in this type of mailing tends to diminish over time, increasing the likelihood that recipients will report graymail as spam. In some cases, graymail can account for up to 82 percent of the average user's email inbox. Graymail was described in 2007 and 2008 by researchers at Microsoft Research looking to improve spam filtering as “messages that could reasonably be considered either spam or good ” hence the name “graymail” was chosen to signify the subjective nature of the classification. A 2008 paper presented at the Fifth annual Conference on Email and Anti-Spam (CEAS) describes graymail as "messages that some users value and others prefer to block". In 2011 a report by The Radicati Group referred to graymail as "newsletters or notifications that a user may have signed up for at one time but no longer wants to receive".

People tend to be much less bothered by spam slipping through filters into their mail box, than having desired e-mail ("ham") blocked. Trying to balance false negatives vs false positives is critical for a successful anti-spam system. As servers are not able to block all spam there are some tools for individual users to help control over this balance.

Unsolicited advertisement comprise all of, but are not limited to:

References

  1. ↑ "FTC Do Not Call Improvement Act of 2007". FTC. 2011-06-24. Retrieved 2012-10-16.
  2. ↑ Woodcock, Neil (2000-04-01). "Legal and Regulatory Update: A new regulatory regime for direct marketing using fax, telephone and e-mail". Interactive Marketing. 1 (4): 413–418. doi: 10.1057/palgrave.im.4340056 . ISSN   1463-5178.
  3. ↑ "National Do Not Call List". Archived from the original on 2014-02-27. Retrieved 2010-07-16.
  4. ↑ Barker, Tim (2010-01-04). "Experts say spam e-mail grows because ... it works". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Retrieved 9 May 2011.
  5. ↑ Don't Respond to Spam: Here's Why, PC Magazine
  6. ↑ Derek E. Weeks. "Infosecurity Blogs". Infosecurity Magazine.
  7. ↑ "Configure access points with Google Location Service". google.com.
  8. ↑ Board of governors of the federal reserve system (2004). "Report to the Congress on Further Restrictions on Unsolicited Written Offers of Credit and Insurance" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on July 17, 2012. Retrieved August 24, 2007.
  9. ↑ "Federal Trade Commission - Sharing Your Personal Information: It's Your Choice". Ftc.gov. Retrieved 2012-10-16.
  10. ↑ "DMAchoice is a mail preference service offered by the Direct Marketing Association". Dmachoice.org. Archived from the original on 2012-11-10. Retrieved 2012-10-16.
  11. ↑ "DMAchoice is a mail preference service offered by the Direct Marketing Association". Dmachoice.org. Archived from the original on 2012-11-22. Retrieved 2012-10-16.
  12. ↑ "Federal Trade Commission - Unsolicited Mail, Telemarketing and Email: Where to Go to "Just Say No"". Ftc.gov. 2011-08-10. Retrieved 2012-10-16.
  13. ↑ "National Do Not Mail List – Get Rid of Junk Mail". DirectMail.com. Archived from the original on 2012-10-29. Retrieved 2012-10-16.
  14. ↑ Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (2013-12-12). "Arbitration Study Preliminary Results: Section 1028(a) Study Results To Date" (PDF). Retrieved 12 December 2013.
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