Join the Begone Movement

by Josh Bernoff

If you've reached this page, it's likely that one of your emails received a response labeled "Begone".

Begone is a movement to make it easy to get off mailing lists. The Begone Movement believes that any consumer should be able to reply to any email with "begone" to be instantly removed from a mailing list. We  believe that the burden to make this as easy as possible belongs on the marketer and emailer, not on the recipient.

The recipient who sent you the "Begone" response to your email is trying to get off your mailing list. If you believe, as we do, that the best, most respectable companies should make it really easy to get off lists, you'll respect this request.

Here's what you should do:

1. If you maintain only one list, remove the recipient from that list and send a single email confirmation that includes the following:
   
   "We understand you want to begone from our mailing list. We've removed you."
2. If you have several lists, send a reply email with options on how to get removed (for example, reply "Begone all" to be removed from all lists, "Begone newsletter" to be removed from just the newsletter list).
3. If you believe in the Begone movement, change your systems to acknowledge it. And take the pledge below by adding your comment to this page. You can also include this pledge in your Begone response emails.

We, the Xxxx company, will gladly act on Begone emails and remove those who send them from our mailing lists, because we respect our customers."

Then add your pledge as a comment below, to show you really mean it. I'll be writing about the companies that take the pledge, and the ones that don't.

You can use the text of the pledge we've decribed here -- and the logos below -- provided your company actually takes the pledge.

Comments

[Euonymous]

Check it out. #Begone (=remove me from your email list) will be a great movement like #Moveyourmoney that could benefit everyone. http://forr.com/Begone

[Ayala Rahav]

This call for a universal movement reflects a user centered zeitgeist that marketers should embrace. Control shift does not spell loss of business, it spells embracing the right culture when we, users, own the conversation. I believe more such initiatives will mushroom as part of a user centered paradigm shift that is already grassrooting. more in http://bit.ly/eS1Ikz

[Randa Quraan]

We, the Xxxx company, will gladly act on Begone emails and remove those who send them from our mailing lists, because we respect our customers."
Randa Quraan
Club Play South Beach

[essay services]

This movement must be a memorable thing for all. Great thing is they do think of this thing. Great idea!

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This call for a universal movement reflects a user centered zeitgeist that marketers I believe more such initiatives will mushroom as part of a user centered paradigm shift that is already grassrooting.