To unsubscribe is to remove yourself from a mailing or messaging list. For a business, an unsubscribe facility is a legal requirement: under Australia's Spam Act, every commercial email or text must include a functional way for the person to stop receiving them. The words "unsubscribe" and "opt out" are used interchangeably by customers; the law is concerned with whether the mechanism works.
ACMA, which enforces the Act, sets out what a working unsubscribe looks like. Its guidance includes honouring a request within five working days, keeping the link or method working for at least 30 days after the message was sent, not charging anything beyond the normal cost of sending a reply, and not making the person log in or hand over more details to leave. Check with ACMA for the full and current requirements before relying on any one point.
In practice
A shop sends a monthly email to its list from a general email program. On a Monday, a customer tells a staff member at the counter that she wants to stop getting the emails. That is an unsubscribe request just as much as clicking the link, and five working days from that Monday runs to the following Monday at the latest. The safer habit is to act on it the same day: the owner removes her that afternoon and tells her at her next visit that it is done.
The numbers are worth watching too. A list of 600 people that loses 5 to an unsubscribe link each month is shedding under 1 percent, which is normal. If 30 people leave after a single email, read that email again before writing the next one.
In Counter Club
Every campaign carries that member's own opt-out link, which opens a page with one Stop messages button, and the stop takes effect when they press it. On Local Favourite, a STOP reply to your number does the same. A request made to you in person goes to us by email. See opt-out and privacy.