Ed Bott’s Windows Expertise ? When should you opt out? Ed Bott is out today with some good advice regarding “opting out” of spam. Conventional wisdom has held in the past that opting out to Spam only increases your spam as it lets the spammer know that they have a live one on the hook. Ed makes the point that opting out of some spam is indeed smart. While I never opt out of crazy spam from unknown sources — Nigerian scam emails, requests to “verify” my Paypal account, an opportunity to get a perfectly legal free copy of Windows XP for free, etc. I do routinely opt out of spam that I get from legitimate businesses. Sometimes I scratch my head when they tell me that I’m getting the spam because I signed up for something, but whatever the case legitimate companies do tend to take you off of their lists and the spamming ceases. I find taking a little time when recognizing a source to get removed from a mass email list makes good sense.