I've been a sort of unwilling member of Classmates.com for a long, long time. I don't really remember why I signed up, but I did, getting the "free" version of the site. They spent many years trying to convince me to upgrade, using various methods and tricks which have been widely reported and complained about, though that hasn't appeared to make them change their minds. I especially loved the "your classmates are looking for you!" ones, since I hated just about everyone in high school and they hated me right back, so that they would be looking for me is unlikely in the extreme. (and the ones that didn't hate found me on....yup, Facebook). I've ignored the deluge of Classmates mail for years, marking it as spam when I remembered to.
Today something tripped my trigger and I decided I wanted off their mailing list. It's of zero value to me, so I looked at their email to see how to unsubscribe. I was pleased to find a removal link at the bottom of the page. Okay, great!
*clicky*.
UH OH! Looky here!
Not registered? Click here.
What's wrong with this picture? A CAN-SPAM violation, you say? You'd be right. A glaring one, that puts them in direct violation of Federal law. You'd think a company that has had a class action suit for fraud filed against them (which they settled to the tune of 9.2 million dollars but... did not admit any wrongdoing) would be interested in not pissing off the Feds.
I note with interest that they have changed mailing methods since the last time I had a reason to look at them. They used to use Verizon Business but for whatever reason (I don't know the reason for sure, but I can speculate, and I am, I am!) are now doing their own mailings, using IPs leased from Level 3.
Since I don't know the password, I cannot unsubscribe, so I guess I will just continue to mark their mail as spam, and perhaps see if I can find my buddy at L3 and see if he can talk some sense to them.
Grmph. Some days I wish I could still whack spammers when I am grumpy.
Awesome post, Annalivia! Funny now that you mentioned it, I'm going to go take a look at it. But yes, I can see the CAN-SPAM violation - one of the simplest, yet scary ones.
Udeme - thanks! are you now at L3?
Sadly they're not the only one, AOL (AIM) has exactly the same issue.