techstyled - 11:55 am on Dec 14, 2007 (gmt 0)

koan: You say there's no such thing as double opt-in and then you describe exactly what the industry has termed double opt-in (validation via email that the address subscribed can be validated, indicating for a _second time_ that the owner of the email in question does in fact want to join a newsletter).

"The industry" came up with the term "double opt-in" to describe a best practice and hence, there is such a thing.

Also, we have a _very_ sizable double opt-in email list that contains many AOL addresses. Because of this, we are whitelisted and subscribed to the feedback loop. In fact, I'm on the distribution list for the feedback loop and I can tell you for a fact that AOL users are either as ill informed as the historical sterotype or perhaps is it due to the "report spam" contests mentioned.

I routinely see emails in the feedback loop that are shipping notifications, order confirmations, etc.

This can sometimes pose a problem because our newletters always cause record sales during the same period (24 hours) as our sending of the newsletter.

I even have several documented cases where users have received the newsletter, reported it as spam yet ordered that same day and then proceeded to report the transactional emails as spam too.