Opt-out
method to remove unsolicited products or advertisements
The term opt-out refers to several methods by which individuals can avoid receiving unsolicited product or service information. This option is usually associated with direct marketing campaigns such as e-mail marketing or direct mail. A list of those who have opted out is called a Robinson list.
Telemarketing
The U.S. Federal Government created the United States National Do Not Call Registry to reduce the telemarketing calls consumers receive at home. Initially numbers listed on the registry were due to be kept for five years but will now remain on it permanently due to the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007, which became law in February 2008.
The UK's Direct Marketing Association operates a voluntary opt-out scheme through the Telephone Preference Service, which was established in 1995. While the service will reduce unsolicited calls it does not stop solicited calls, market research calls, silent calls or overseas calls.
Canada's National Do Not Call List operates an opt-out list which allows consumers to register their wishes not to have telemarketing calls. Charities, newspapers, and pollsters are exempt although each of these is required to keep their own do not call list that consumers can be added to at their request.
Australia has a national Do Not Call Register.
The public source identifies “Opt-out” as method to remove unsolicited products or advertisements. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Opt-out, method and remove.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1368455. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2007, 2008 and 1995.
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This entry incorporates text from “Opt-out” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.