Opt-out deadline
The time a sender has to stop mailing someone who unsubscribed: 10 business days under CAN-SPAM and CASL; Google expects 48 hours of bulk senders and Yahoo requires 2 days.
What it means
The FTC's CAN-SPAM guide says you must honour a recipient's opt-out request within 10 business days, and that the opt-out mechanism must keep working for at least 30 days after the message is sent. Canada's CASL requires an unsubscribe request to be given effect without delay and no later than 10 business days after it is sent.
Mailbox providers are faster. Google's FAQ lists unsubscribe requests not honoured within 48 hours among the issues that make bulk senders ineligible for delivery support. Yahoo asks bulk senders to honour unsubscribes within 2 days.
The legal deadline is a maximum. M3AAWG says the longer removal takes, the more likely recipients are to complain, so process unsubscribes as they arrive.
Related terms
Sources
What this definition rests on. The wording is ours; the facts are theirs.
- FTC: CAN-SPAM Act, a compliance guide for businessftc.gov
- Justice Laws Website: Canada's anti-spam legislation (S.C. 2010, c. 23)laws-lois.justice.gc.ca
- Google: Email sender guidelines FAQsupport.google.com
- Yahoo Sender Hub: Sender requirements and recommendationssenders.yahooinc.com
- M3AAWG Sender Best Common Practices, version 4.0 (August 2026)m3aawg.org
All 432 terms in the glossaryThe wiki: blocklists and bounce codes