Explainers · Updated 2026-11-06
I got an abandoned cart email but never entered my email address
How a store can email you about a cart when you never gave it your address, which companies make that possible, and the request that makes them stop.
The normal version of this email is simple: you typed your email at checkout, left before paying, and the store reminded you. The version that makes people angry is the other one. You never reached checkout, never typed anything, and the reminder came anyway.
Two ways it happens
- Form capture before you submit. Some scripts read the email field as you type it, so starting to fill a form and then leaving still sends the address. This is what a widely shared Hacker News thread caught SafeOpt doing on a store in 2020, with the top comment asking how it could be legal.
- Identity resolution with no form at all. The store's pixel matches your browser or network to a data broker's table and gets your email back. Retention.com, Opensend, Customers.ai, Wunderkind and Minty (formerly SafeOpt) all sell a version of this to stores.
Why unsubscribing is not enough
Unsubscribing removes you from that one store's list. The broker that matched you still has the row, and the next store running the same pixel gets the same answer. The fix is one level up: a deletion and do-not-sell request to the broker. Under California's privacy law and the laws of several other states they must act on it within 45 days, and most will act on requests from anywhere in the country rather than check where you live.
What a request needs to say
Your name, the email addresses you want removed, your mailing address and state, and a clear instruction to delete your data and stop selling it, citing the law of your state. Our broker guides include a complete request for each company. Some companies will reply asking you to confirm the email address; the request is not processed until you do.