There is a practice that has become increasingly common in email marketing, and it deserves to be called out directly. When a company makes it intentionally difficult to unsubscribe from their emails, whether by hiding the unsubscribe link in plain text, burying it in an obscure corner, or building a multi-step obstacle course just to opt out, that is not an oversight. That is a choice.
Today I was going through a batch of emails I never intentionally signed up for and working through the unsubscribe process on several of them. Most were straightforward enough. Then I got to Bose.
Bose makes excellent audio products. I have genuine respect for what they do as a company. That is exactly why this was surprising. The unsubscribe link in their email was styled in the same color as the surrounding text, making it nearly invisible unless you were specifically hunting for it. That alone would be enough to raise an eyebrow. But clicking it did not unsubscribe me. Instead it redirected me to their website, where I was required to log in with my name and then enter a verification code just to complete the opt out. Multiple steps, multiple clicks, and in my case the verification code was not even working properly, which made the whole process even more frustrating.
This is not good practice. It is not a gray area. Companies are legally required to honor unsubscribe requests in a straightforward manner, and engineering friction into that process runs counter to both the spirit and in many cases the letter of that requirement.
If your product is good, you should not need to trap people into receiving your emails. Let the quality of what you offer bring people back. Holding someone’s inbox hostage is not a retention strategy. It is just a way to burn goodwill with the customers you already have.
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