Cam Beck, of Marketing Profs, introduces us to some tricky language with the Bank of America Newsletter opt-in (opt-out?) process.

In one selection the box is left unchecked, but the language used describes that checking the box will opt you out of the special BoA offers. The default is to begin recieving these comunications. While the scond box is already checked, and ask that you uncheck it to stop notices from Customer Service.
These examples of negative response options are likely to lead your program down the path of delivery issues, and client confusion over why they are recieving your comunications.

Beck Writes: “Bank of America followed the letter of the law [CAN-SPAM], but they did so with a method that can only be described as misleading since people typically don’t read those sorts of messages, and the action required to opt out changes from one email message to the next within the same form.“

Mark Brownlow from Email Marketing Reports has a good follow up to this article providing an example of a clear and informative opt-in process, while Derek Harding explains why “opt-out is spam and spam is bad for e-mail, bad for our customers, and bad for us” in this ClickZ Article.