I opted out of some software company’s emails a few moments ago. Within seconds I received a confirmation email. It contained this line:
“Please allow 10 business days for this change to take effect.”
How come their computers can send the confirmation in seconds but it takes 10 days to implement the change? They make software, right?
Spammers use the ‘opt out’ link to qualify your email presence. If you answer they know that there’s someone reading their mail. Before that they only know that their mail doesn’t bounce. So the result of opting out is that that particular spammer now knows that his email is actually read, therefor more valuable.
They give you two weeks before they turn off your service because most people forget what they’ve done before two weeks have elapsed.
The best thing to do with unwanted emails is to use the black/white list feature of your email client. Just blacklist the mail you’ve identified that you don’t want to read. An unknown email will soon be scrubbed from spammer’s lists.