thread Re: Automatic Subscribe to Marketing Email List After Online Purchase Without Consent in Customer Engagement

Automatic Subscribe to Marketing Email List After Online Purchase Without Consent

ABGbake — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 07:53:51 GMT

So I just intergrated square with MailChimp to start our marketing newsletter... which we have places to sign up for the newsletter on our website.

One of our staff members had placed an order online and I noticed it made them sign up. I had asked them if they signed up for our newsletter and they said no.

So I just did some test purchases on our website and it was automatically adding my test emails into the marketing opt-in even though I never opted into marketing. (see photos below)
I checked with MailChimp and they said that it was on Square's end because they directly pull the data from square to add people either as a customer or as a subscriber.

This seems like a bug... I tried checking and unchecking the opt-in option at checkout that is in the online store checkout settings, both tests automatically subscribed to email marketing... I really don't want to add people to a marketing email list when they never signed up for it.. I'm not 100% sure but I don't think you're actually allowed to add people to a marketing list without consent

I did try to get on tech support with no assistance. I then turned to the message board to hopefully get someone to address this or possibly help the situation.

Mailchimp Subscriber ListSquare Customer Profile ListMailchimp Subscriber ListSquare Customer Profile List

Re: Automatic Subscribe to Marketing Email List After Online Purchase Without Consent

Donnie-M — Mon, 24 Oct 2022 14:44:45 GMT

@ABGbake I would have to dig more on the not working if you unchecked the box, but there is opt in versus opt out. Opt in automatically is perfectly reasonable as long as when they uncheck it it does opt out. There should also be opt out in the e-mail that is sent. Square does this with texts also.

it’s not illegal to pre-check the checkbox. CAN-SPAM law says that you can email anyone you want until they tell you to stop (i.e. Unsubscribe).
Depending on the form (i.e. shopping cart checkout vs. a white paper download vs. a partner sign-up form), people may *expect* to be signed up for email automatically or at least won’t be surprised to see it when you send your first email.
You’ll definitely grow your list at a faster rate by pre-checking the box for customers/prospects."

Re: Automatic Subscribe to Marketing Email List After Online Purchase Without Consent

ABGbake — Thu, 27 Oct 2022 11:13:50 GMT

Thank you for your response. I did look into the law as well. As long as they can unsubscribe from the email its okay. It will actually help build the list from people who already wanted to subscribed but didn't know about it.