Isn’t it great when you go through an entire web form, give up your credit card information and then at the end, the vendor assumes you want tons of spam, unsolicited offers and other worthless stuff, so they precheck the checkbox for you?

Stop it! This is just one more way to take “control” away from the user. Yes, the user can easily uncheck the checkbox if they want to, but you’ve worked so hard to establish trust and get them to that point to purchase your goods, do you now want to undermine yourself by trying to trick them in wanting a bunch of crap?

I signed up for a “prominent” subscription last night (oh, ok, HBR), and here’s the ploy they used:

[ ] I do not wish to receive information or offers from HBR

[ ] I do not wish to receive special offers from carefully selected vendors

So if I DON’T check these, then I will get a bunch of stuff from “carefully selected vendors.” Nice try. Same thing as prechecking the box.

Continue building rapport with your customers. Don’t precheck checkboxes or play any tricks like HBR does. Just give them what they want, treat them like customers and they’ll probably act like the good customers you want.