Whenever a company says “In order to serve you better”, you can be pretty sure they’re about to do something that will make your life more miserable. This time, I’m going to call out Chase Financial Services, who recently sent out notices to customers who had specified that they did not want to receive marketing materials informing them that they now have greater control over which marketing materials they will receive, and the default is that they will receive everything. Strange, you’d think that if somebody said, “Don’t send me marketing materials,” then they probably meant “Don’t send me marketing materials,” and therefore that the translation of this into a “fine-grained control” is “no to everything.” Because that’s how they’ve interpreted it up until now anyway.

Of course, the real reason they did this is to reset all their customer’s preferences so they can start sending them advertising again. Notice that your opt-out choice must be renewed every five years. Hey, at least it’s better than having to reiterate your preferences every three months like some companies require.