Hey, Reader.

Have you ever started receiving emails that you know you did not subscribe to, but you do remember visiting the site recently?

Let's blame Neil Patel.

Okay, it's not really his fault, but he apparently supports such nefarious practices.​

It is a thing.

There are tools that allow a site to grab an email from a visitor and just add them to an email list.

No subscribe. No opt-in. No permission.

Just new emails you didn't ask for.

Can you tell how we feel about this practice?

It's top of mind today because it came up in our AMA in the PetBiz Collaborative. No one thought it was a great idea. In fact, we were complaining about the extra time it takes to unsubscribe to emails that we never subscribed to!

Three Reasons NOT to Grab Email Addresses Without Permission

1. It's just wrong. This really should be all that you need to know.
2. It's illegal in many countries - Canada and all of the EU are just two examples.
3. See #1. Seriously. We don't know a single person who would be happy about receiving an email that did not have permission to land in their inbox.

Also, please stop adding people's email addresses to your email list just because you exchanged business cards at an event.

Handing out a business card is not permission to receive marketing emails.

Our best practice is to follow up with a direct email and invite that person to join your list. It should be their choice, not their business card's.

What other email faux pas (which is a nice way to put it) do you see happening out there in the wild?

Thank YOU for sharing your inbox with us. We respect your choice and are grateful for it.

The BlogPaws Team

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