Delayed Unsubscribing from Promotional Emails

January 31, 2008 | 2 comments

I recently unsubscribed from Barnes and Noble promotional emails, which I was getting, I think, because I signed up for a Barnes and Noble membership card the last time I was in Columbus. That’s the best guess I can make, anyway - I’ve never purchased anything from their website.

When I went to the unsubscribe page and submitted my email address to be removed from their list, I was shown this:

Your email address has been successfully opted out from Barnes & Noble promotional e-mails.
Please note that this change will be in effect within 10 business days. Thank you.

Is there any legit reason for it taking up to 10 business days? Technically speaking, I don’t see why it would take more than a few minutes, at most. I would assume that the email addresses are stored in a database, and when it’s time for a promotional email to go out, their system pulls the addresses out. While I’ve only dealt with MySQL databases, I can’t imagine that a database system which required 10 days processing time to remove one entry would be very efficient!

I suppose the reality of the situation lies in one word of that sentence: business. By telling their advertisers they’ll keep email addresses in the loop for 10 days after someone requests to be removed from the list, Barnes and Noble is probably making a heap of cash.

Oh well - certainly not a big deal, but it is something to chuckle about. I note that it doesn’t take 10 days for the ad emails to start showing up after you’ve signed up for a service of some sort. :)

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2 comments

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February 1, 2008 at 12:19 pm

Tom

Tom’s avatar

You’ve got quite the point.

I wonder if there are any laws in place (in Canada or the US) that require them to move faster.

February 2, 2008 at 3:21 pm

Josh

Josh’s avatar

I don’t know one way or another; I doubt it, though. There should be, however.

I was wondering how the whole “10 day” thing started, because I’ve seen it elsewhere in unsubscribing from newsletters and similar communications. Maybe it was something that washed over from hard-copy newsletters/ promotions - that is, “give us at least 10 days to get your mailed-in unsubscription notice and update our subscriber lists.” That doesn’t seem too unreasonable.

But to ask for 10 days with a digital email list? That’s just nonsense.