A historical question has come up on another list: when did companies first start offering webpage visitors "opt-in" options for emailing, that is, the boxes or other mechanisms that allowed people to opt in for mailing from other companies?

> > Who was the first to use those little opt-in
> checkboxes
> > online?  I know
> > NetCreations started in 1996 or so, but I seem to
> > remember doing stuff
> > earlier.  Does anyone have any firm dates?  I have
> > tried Google, WayBack,
> > etc, and the earliest firm date I can find is a
> general
> > 1996.

Thanks for any leads,
Gina