Visa's marketing opt-out has been down for over a week. Is this a legal issue?

IANAL, but if the page is used to opt-out of marketing emails, then yes, Visa is in violation the US CAN-SPAM act, which requires promptly processing opt-out requests.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ftc.gov&#x2F;business-guidance&#x2F;resources&#x2F;can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ftc.gov&#x2F;business-guidance&#x2F;resources&#x2F;can-spam-act...</a><p>As long as the opt-out page is broken, they should not be sending out marketing emails and could be open to a class-action lawsuit from people they email with no ability to opt-out.

This is what is so frustrating about companies harming many people by small amounts. There is no actual recourse for the individuals. If an individual missed a credit card payment by mistake, the bank would assuredly charge them a late fee, report the payment to the credit agencies, etc. But when the company makes a mistake like this, no penalty, no consequences. It really should be the other way around—we should extend grace to the person rather than the company, yet the company basically has more “rights” in a way than the person.

A description of what you are supposed to be able to opt-out from on Visa cards is here:<p>&quot;In some countries, Visa enhances card transaction data and uses it to generate anonymised and aggregated consumer spending and marketing reports and other data products that enable companies to improve their marketing efforts. These solutions help companies identify consumers that they can target.&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.visa.co.uk&#x2F;legal&#x2F;privacy-policy-opt-out.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.visa.co.uk&#x2F;legal&#x2F;privacy-policy-opt-out.html</a>

When I tried to get my annual credit report, I find that the credit agencies constantly have trouble validating my identify online even though I have one of the simplest reports. A single same address for decades, no loans, paid off every month.<p>They randomly will say that I can&#x27;t be verified, and I need to snail mail them copies of a bunch of identifying documents to get my credit report. I imagine this is a common issue, and somehow still satisfies their requirement to offer the annual credit report online.

Depends on local laws. And they&#x27;ll likely say that they have a phone number you could have called.

It&#x27;s okay.<p>MasterCard&#x27;s MasterPass service&#x27;s website in Ukraine[1] had it&#x27;s certificate expired like half a year ago and has only been renewed a few days ago. Meanwhile the customer support assured customers that MasterCard is doing everything possible to fix the issue.<p>Six months to renew SSL cert...<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;masterpass.com.ua&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;masterpass.com.ua&#x2F;</a>

Nah cos big corps just do what they want with no penalties unless they piss off enough people that the politicans feel like they need to make a point.. ...we&#x27;re well into gangster capitalism now

You&#x27;re asking in the wrong forum. You want legal opinions, not a bunch of HNers without law degrees or licenses to practice answering this question.

Now the domain is gone:<p><pre><code> ; &lt;&lt;&gt;&gt; DiG 9.16.1-Ubuntu &lt;&lt;&gt;&gt; marketingreportoptout.visa.com ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; -&gt;&gt;HEADER&lt;&lt;- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 23155 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 1 ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION: ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;marketingreportoptout.visa.com. IN A ;; AUTHORITY SECTION: visa.com. 284 IN SOA ns1.dnsvisa.com. premiumdns.support.neustar. 2019108493 600 300 1209600 300</code></pre>

This has been true for &quot;Camel&quot; (cdr R.J Reynolds, cddr British American Tobacco) promotional emails for months. I&#x27;ve been through the unsubscribe workflow several times but still receive emails. I do appreciate the irony - it&#x27;s as hard to unsubscribe as it is to quit smoking!

Dark patterns all around! Same i experienced with Coinbase after registering, when i searched for delete account, there is no such thing!

I’m guessing you can still write or call them.

Does anybody have a phone number or other resource that can be used for opting out of marketing?

So has Adobe&#x27;s too apparently

The credit card companies make so much money that reimbursing fraudulent transactions is almost a rounding error -- which is why they aren&#x27;t in a rush to spend the money to implement chip and PIN security. Given this attitude I&#x27;m guessing someone already ran the cost&#x2F;benefit analysis of pivoting engineering teams to fix the opt-out website versus just paying a fine -- and that paying lawyers to contest any fine they might ever get came out on the winning side of the ledger.

It is a violation with a theoretical hefty fine of around $40k per infraction. But in practice, laws don&#x27;t apply to companies like Visa.<p>XFINITY&#x27;s email marketing system has been ignoring opt-outs for years and nothing has or will ever happen.