I'm getting marketing emails from a company with whom I have a legitimate business relationship.  This is fine until they don't honor unsubscribe requests.  But wait, there's more!  Now with new and improved delicious irony-flavored spam.

It starts with one email advertising their new site design.  No problem, I'll just click on the unsubscribe link, and think nothing further of it.  But  there's no unsubscribe link, so I reply to the email with the request that they remove me from their email marketing list and that I can't seem to find the unsubscribe link anywhere, and could you possibly add an unsubscribe link to these emails?  I don't expect a reply.

I get an email from some spam-killer service requesting that I click on a link to 'verify' myself so the sender won't get spam.  I google the name on it and it appears to be from the CEO of the company sending me the emails, presumably to tell me why its OK that his company is sending me spam.  This doesn't just suck, isn't just a bummer, isn't, in other words, Alanis, but is honestly and truly ironic.

I'm not going to click on a link in some third-party email, as it could lead to a malicious browser script, or who knows what else.  Especially not one protecting the guy sending me spam from getting spam.  I reply again to the spam, requesting to be removed from their email list.

Then I get a new marketing email from them.  This one actually had an unsubscribe link at the bottom.  I happily click it, grateful that they've taken my advice.  It takes me to a site selling shoes under a different domain name, but appears to unsubscribe me from something which is sketchy as hell but still in the realm of OK.

At this point, I'd have been fine if I just didn't get any more marketing emails.  I'm not against marketing emails in general when they're done right, and requests to be removed are honored.  I'm even on a few by choice, because I like being informed about the new toys at ThinkGeek or when the next AIGA event is.  I even understand technical problems and broken unsubscribe links, having created my fair share of them.  

What I don't understand is receiving a duplicate of the second marketing email in response to my attempt at unsubscribing.  I send out an email of my own to their info@ address, asking again to be unsubscribed.  Now it's getting irritating.  I can't just set up a rule to bin their emails since it will interfere with the aforementioned legitimate business relationship.  Nobody has made an honest effort to contact me or sort out the problem.  This is starting to make them look at best, incompetent, and at worst, malicious.  

I've sent them another polite email pointing out the delicious irony along with another request for removal.  If that doesn't work, I think I'll mail their CEO an envelope full of Spam® with my email address on it along with a note saying "Do not open until Christmas."  

It should keep.