Opt-In or Opt-Out... What Does That Mean?

Question: Opt-In or Opt-Out... What Does That Mean?

Answer: Many sponsors use sweepstakes to entice more people to sign up for their company newsletters. In most cases, the sweepstakes sponsors will give entrants the choice of signing up to receive more information from the company or not. The choice you'll make is called opting in or out.

• If you do want to receive newsletters, you'll opt in to receive additional information.
• If you would prefer not to receive information by email, you'll opt out from subscribing.

Some sweepstakes will give you the opportunity to opt in or out to several different types of information. For example, they might give you the chance to opt into their in-house email newsletter as well as information from other companies that they recommend. Others might offer a variety of newsletters that you can receive.

It's worth taking the time to read through your options carefully. Some newsletters are very valuable, and can help you find new sweepstakes more quickly or provide other interesting information. But if you don't want to receive the information, accidentally opting in can result in quite a lot of unwanted email.

Whether you opt in or not does not affect your chances of winning, unless signing up for the newsletter is a condition of entry.