For example: On the guardian website when I created my account it defaulted me to on for sending me communications my post, phone and SMS about their products and services and for marketing research. I find that unacceptable.

They offer an "Unsubscribe from all email" button but this is only available in their online settings, if you click on an unwanted email and unsubscribe there, the above settings remain on.

And it was just an example. It's just every time I sign up for something it's not just that, I also have to unsubscribe for a bunch of mailing lists and surveys I never asked for. And go through all the privacy settings and turn off all the crap where they use my information. Sometimes even periodically like on LinkedIn where they keep adding new settings that default to on.