The Posterous Cafe

Opt in and opt out

I think there are a few general principles that could save us time and money and hassle:

• If there's a public good involved from a certain behavior, the default should be opt out.
• If the pressure or cost of opting out is high and it involves a civil right, then opt in is a better choice for our society. (Obviously a potential conflict to the first rule).
• If a business benefits in aggregate and the consumer is penalized on average, then it's smart public policy for it to be opt in.
• If your business is going to depend on this connection as an asset, opt in is the way to go. Opt out email is another word for spam.

I don't usually push posts from Seth Godin for two reasons
1) His posts are generally just 'common sense' and nothing too enlightening
2) He has his own tribe of folks who can send out stuff on his behalf

But I wanted to make an exception for his 'Opt in and Opt out' post because I feel it actually has something worthwhile to say in a non common sense (but still very sensible) manner. Click the link to read it all