Plugging the dam
When that first email from Dominos arrived, letting me know that I could get another delicious pizza for a fantastic price, I instantly knew I'd made a mistake.
The pit in my stomach told me I'd done something wrong. I gave into the machine, and it had me.
Still, I had to go through the motions to release myself from its clutches.
I unsubscribed from the email and moved on with my day.
The next morning, I got another email. I repeated the process, attempting to keep at bay the rising anxiety.
My perfectly tuned inbox had been found out; my sanctum of protected information breached.
By the third day, and the third email, it was time. Much like Vernon Dursley, I realized my mistake and the impossibility of my task. But I tried to stop it nonetheless.
My second step, was relatively sane.
I'd already unsubscribed, multiple times. But sometimes marketing emails take a while to stop.1
I decided to login to my newly created account and check on the actual status of where things stood.
That took a little bit of searching.
You see, it's very easy to login to your account and order another pizza, but anything outside of that flow is mystery meat navigation. It took some prodding and searching to finally discover my account preferences.
There probably was a checkmark somewhere to make sure things were turned off. I can't remember at this stage, if it existed I pressed it.
I then took a full blast approach to getting free of the machine.
I emailed Dominos multiple times, demanding to be removed, and I even went through some weird process to deactivate my account, letting them know that I did in fact want to remove my data, and no I wasn't worried about losing any accumulated points.
The emails kept coming.
Finally, last week, in a fit of desperation I changed my email address. I found my account preferences (not easy to locate), and changed from my personal email to a custom (basically throwaway) iCloud domain.
Then I shut down the iCloud domain.
In triumph I reported my findings to friends in a group chat, and went to bed happy.
The next morning another email arrived.
And so here I stand today. I've unsubscribed, emailed, removed my account from marketing, changed my email (and shut it down), and still the emails are arriving.
I don't know what to do next, maybe I'm still on the original 45 day timer where no matter what I do things will keep coming. Or maybe there are magical elements a foot, and I'll soon be expecting an owl to drop the next message through my chimney.
- This, of course, is an absolute farce. If I can be added an email list instantly, it should be just as easy to remove myself—permanently.