Brooklyn Based often includes links to sponsored posts in the body of their editorial emails. This is the classy way to sell your list.

Time Out New York, on the other hand, pounds their email list with emails from their advertisers¹, and there’s no escaping it. They assume – in my case incorrectly – that if you’re interested in their content you’ll be willing to put up with additional emails from their advertisers. This is the decidedly un-classy way to sell your list. (Note that the example below shows one of these emails in its entirety: it’s literally one big ad from a company to which the recipient has no relationship.)

Alas, if you find this problematic and try to opt-out, you’re out of luck:

¹ Advertiser emails come from a Time Out email address. But when the email contains only an ad, what’s the difference?