Double or Single opt-in?

Hello all,

What are your thoughts on double or single opt-in for people signing up for your newsletter.

Barb.

maybe you can describe what you mean with double opt-in?

By double opt-in I mean when a person signs up for my newsletter, they then get a confirmation email that they have to confirm their subscription.
Apparantly this is supposed to be a lot safer, but it seems a lot of marketers are using single opt-in without the confirmation email being sent.

I have actually just gone into my account in Getresponse and found that I cannot change my campaign from double opt-in to single opt-in so I will have to stick with it for now.

Barb.

In many countries is this a requirement because of privacy

I can't think of a country where double opt in is now not a requirement so the simple answer is its essential :) actually I can think of one Nigeria

I'm sure there are more in the carabian see :D

Even if you could use single opt in mailing list, you would be exposed. Think what could happen if a competitor of yours used a script to register hundends of members without their permission....

I would always bite the bullet and put the extra time towards making it double-opt-in. People have ran into enough of those already, that I think they're fine with it.  Plus, as Nik puts it - its very good to stop competitors from giving you a bad name.  Finally, your local laws (especially if you work anything out of the USA - think 'Can SPAM Act') play a big part, actually. :)