I’m not a fan of Junk mail and much less so for e-mail Junk mail. I also prefer to have control over my personal information. This is why I get annoyed when I receive letters with an ultimatum: answer this or we will share of all our information on you with our partners.I’m also annoyed when I’m registering for a service and I have to scour the webpages to see where I have to opt out of junk e-mail. Both of these happened to me last week, so here is my rant on the subject.
I would be much better served if the law erred on the side of caution and forced the companies to have to work on the opt in model, rather than the opt out model. For those of you who don’t know, the opt out model is where you are offered a service automatically and you have to go out of your way to opt out. The opt in model, you have to go out of your way to receive the service. I’m calling it a service, although I’ve never felt that I benefit from said services.
For example, you need to register for your phone service. When you do so, you are automatically `opted in’ to being able to spend money easily on your phone unless you restrict it. The case in point is calling numbers that charge for phone calls. There are various scams that exploit this standard setting. Sometimes they kind of register you through a promotion so that you end up spending money even if you didn’t want to do so. The phone company will just charge you for it and wash their hands since it is not their fault. So you have to opt out of the service by going out of your way and doing so. This is especially important if you consider the most recent virus on android enabled phones.
Of course, this does not protect against stupidity. But if you have to opt in for paying for such services by speaking to a representative, the cost to your wallet would go down in such an event because most people find bothersome to have to do anything.
It is clear why marketers like the opt out model: they have a direct line to serve you stuff (as much as they can try to funnel towards you without completely annoying you) as soon as you sign up unless you go out of your way to stop them. In the opt in model, you have to ask for your information to be shared.
The thing is that it is very hard to keep track of who has your information when you’re dealing with individual companies. However, if your information is shared a lot by default, you lose all control on that almost from the start.
Of course, you could always read economic papers on the subject that suggest that the opt out model is the most efficient for market economics. I’m not inspired by these studies into buying the opt out model: the studies do not seem to take into account the misuses of all that information.
I’m also not inspired by the recent developments where various governments around the world get an automatic pass on surveilance without court warrants. Current technological farming of information can be done on industrial scales at very low cost. This is very worrisome for freedoms that I hold dear: like talking nonsense on my phone without me having to worry on who’s listening.
Come on, David.
It’s obvious what’s better about the opt-out model. It simply increases the chance that the legitimate economic transactions will occur in the future – and bring profits to the sellers, but also pleasure to the buyers.
The sellers are motivated to sell as much as they can. Only a denial of basic logic – or an organized and deliberate suppression of the economy – could refute this elementary point.
Is it better to be “signed” by default or not, from some whole-societal viewpoint? You must compare the costs and benefits. The benefits of the “signed default state” involve the higher expected number of useful transactions in the future. The costs are just one click to unregister. I think it’s clear that it’s statistically useful for the society if you get the demo of related products and services with something you buy or order etc.
It has become cheaper to acquire certain kind of information etc. It has also become easier to deal with unwelcome communication, spam, and other things. Moreover, the correlated development in these two competing efforts is actually no coincidence: it’s another manifestation of the market’s trying to find the balance.
I have had no problems worth mentioning with such required opt outs at least for 5 years and I have been led to useful products or services in this way in the past.
>It’s obvious what’s better about the opt-out model. It
> simply increases the chance that the legitimate economic
> transactions will occur in the future – and bring profits to
> the sellers, but also pleasure to the buyers.
such as the pleasure of penis enlargement?
Although I have to point out that Lubos makes one good point: after all there’s *two* cost/benefit points of view here. One from the pov of you, one of the pov of the company.
Obviously, I don’t need the particular service you chose as an example but it’s damn sure that many other men do.
Yes, transactions have at least two sides and each of them has a point of view. But when two sides make a transaction, their interests are positively correlated. The transaction itself is a positive for both of them, otherwise they wouldn’t make it.
Advertising is just a method to increase the fraction of these potential “benefits for both sides” that will be realized.
I have to completely agree with David here, except for one point: He forgot the : in the http:// of the link to the android virus article.
My usual view of things is: if it has to be advertised to you, it’s probably not worth it, otherwise you’d have found out about it another way. The more sneaky the advertising, the less likely you need a thing.
Fixed the link. Thanks!
Dear Nick, I don’t personally believe that the correlation you hypothesize exists at a significant level.
While it may sound logical, one may also pronounce similarly “logical” explanations with the opposite correlation as a conclusion. For example, if a company doesn’t promote a product, it probably knows that the expenses for ads would be a waste of money because people wouldn’t buy it, anyway.
Every product may need some advertising, every product may be insufficiently known, and every product may be affected by an insufficient knowledge about its quality or myths – and commercials fight against all these things.
Well, what about “sneaky” advertising? I think that the right correlation is that the poorer a company is, the more sneaky or amateurish methods of promotion it may choose. But it doesn’t imply that you don’t actually need their products.
I’d mind the opt-out model less if it were easier to use. Like the nation-wide “do-not-call” list. I’d like a “do not email/mail” list as well.
For instance, what about companies that randomly call your home or cell phone? Why is that an opt-out model, they’re literally interrupting whatever you’re doing to steal your attention for a product you don’t want or need. Just because some people are easily seduced into buying random things doesn’t mean my time should be taken. We put up with advertisements on damn near everything these days – even the little pieces of cardboard you wrap around coffee-to-go has an advertisement on it these days. So I’d really like my mailboxes to remain clear.
The only mailed advertisement I’ve ever bought things from was NewEgg – a newsletter I signed up for and an item I had been waiting to go on sale appeared. But this was opt-in, not opt-out mailing.
However, I’m not the average American consumer by far, and if my mom is any measure, opt-out advertising must be lucrative as hell when you send it to people with lots of credit cards and poor impulse control.
On the other hand, real life junk-mail makes great kitten toys.