A few months ago, I was in a Brantano shoe shop in the UK. I was approached by a member of staff asking whether I would like to join their email mailing list, in which I would be sent news of upcoming discount promotions before they were made public, special offers etc. I filled in the form and returned it to them. I was assured that there would be only about 3 or 4 emails per year.

A couple of weeks later, I received an email from Brantano. From the tone of the message I got the feeling that there would be more than 3 or 4 per year. Add to that the fact that they had mis-spelled my name (I wrote it clearly enough on the form), I decided to unsubscribe from the the newsletter.

So I clicked the Unsubscribe link, which failed to do anything. I tried the same link in 3 different browsers in case there was some sort of incompatibility, but it still failed to work.
So after a lot of searching on their website, I found an email address for their webmaster and sent an email requesting that my details be removed from their database.
I received a reply stating that my details had been removed as requested.

A few days ago, what should appear in my email Inbox, but a newsletter from Brantano. Clearly they had NOT removed my details from my database as requested.
I clicked the Unsubscribe link in this new email (assuming that they had fixed it), and it took me to a Subscribe page. There was no option to unsubscribe at all.

On the basis that

1. I had requested to be removed from the database
2. I had been assured that I had been removed from the database
3. I continued to receive emails from them
4. Their unsubscribe link doesn’t work

their messages are technically classed as spam, and therefore, illegal.

So beware Brantano’s mailing list. Once you’re on there, you can’t get off!