DM News is reporting today that the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in its recently published Email Data Management Best Practices is now recommending that marketers only send email to those who have 'opted in' to receive it. The article further states that this is "not a surprise" given that the FTC considers this a best practice "as part of CAN-SPAM legislation.

But wait... this is not what the FTC requires. Via the CAN-Spam Act of 2003:

"It requires that your email give recipients an opt-out method. You must provide a return email address or another Internet-based response mechanism that allows a recipient to ask you not to send future email messages to that email address, and you must honor the requests. You may create a "menu" of choices to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to end any commercial messages from the sender.

Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your commercial email. When you receive an opt-out request, the law gives you 10 business days to stop sending email to the requestor's email address. You cannot help another entity send email to that address, or have another entity send email on your behalf to that address. Finally, it's illegal for you to sell or transfer the email addresses of people who choose not to receive your email, even in the form of a mailing list, unless you transfer the addresses so another entity can comply with the law."

While it is admirable to pursue an opt-in or even a double opt-in method only, I'm not sure that it is necessary. The reality is that most consumers have been trained to look for and uncheck any subscription boxes they don't want selected. Additionally, consumers understand how to unsubscribe from a mailing or provide complaints through their ISP, which also inevitably results in an unsubscribe request being made.

The debate fundamentally is not about opt-in vs. opt-out, it is about providing relevant, timely content to your subscribers - regardless of the method they used to subscribe. This is the area where marketers need to focus -- not on changing their subscription logic.