How to Opt Out of Epsilon and the Abacus Co-op

Opting Out of a Catalog Treats the Symptom; Opting Out of Epsilon Treats the Cause

Opting out of a single catalog is treating the symptom; opting out of Epsilon treats the cause. When you call a furniture retailer and ask to stop their catalog, you remove one address from one company's mailing — and you do nothing about the dozens of other catalogs that will buy your address from the exact same upstream supplier next quarter. Epsilon is that upstream supplier. It is not a people-search website you stumble onto when you search your own name; it is one of the largest marketing-data companies in the country, and it sits directly above the catalog mailing lists in the supply chain.

Epsilon (a Publicis Groupe company) operates the Abacus Cooperative, a shared marketing database that catalog and retail companies contribute their own transaction data into in exchange for access to everyone else's. That is the mechanic that makes Epsilon the textbook supply-chain target for anyone trying to stop catalog mail. A co-op member uploads its customer purchase history; in return it can rent audiences built from the pooled buying behavior of every other member. Your name, address, and the categories of things you have bought by mail order are precisely the signals that catalog companies pay Epsilon to model and target. Cut your record out of Epsilon's databases and you are removing yourself from a hub that feeds many catalog mailers at once, not just one.

Epsilon documents its consumer opt-out process on its own legal site. Per its consumer information page, when you submit an opt-out request the company marks your information as "Do Not Share" rather than deleting it outright — it keeps a suppression record so that if your data is resubmitted later by a contributing company, the opt-out is still honored. Epsilon is also explicit about the limit of the request: opting out applies to "Epsilon's marketing databases only, not databases belonging to other companies." That honesty is useful. It tells you exactly what this one step does and does not accomplish, which is why the supply-chain strategy of working through the major hubs systematically matters more than any single removal.

The opt-out is free, requires no account, and can be done through a web form or by phone. The steps below walk through the real process, including the route Epsilon itself recommends for broader catalog suppression.

How to opt out of Epsilon: step by step

Epsilon routes all consumer privacy requests — opt-out, deletion, and access — through a single Consumer Privacy Request Form. There is no separate public web form labeled "Abacus": because Abacus is Epsilon's own cooperative database, your Epsilon opt-out is what suppresses your record inside the co-op. Submit the request honestly and keep your confirmation.

1. Open Epsilon's Consumer Privacy Request Form. Go to https://legal.epsilon.com/dsr/. This is the official Epsilon data subject request page where all consumer requests are submitted. The form is operated by Epsilon's parent, Publicis Groupe.

2. Select the opt-out option. On the form, choose the "Do not sell my personal information / Opt-out" request type. This is the choice that suppresses your record across Epsilon's marketing databases, including the Abacus Cooperative pool that catalog companies draw from. If you want your data deleted as well as suppressed, the same form offers a deletion request — though note that suppression (Do Not Share) is what survives future resubmission by member companies, so opting out is the durable choice.

3. Enter your identifying details. Provide the name, current mailing address, and any prior addresses you have used. Because Epsilon's records are address-keyed for catalog targeting, listing every address you have received mail at over the past few years helps ensure all your records are matched and suppressed, not just the most recent one.

4. Or opt out by phone. If you prefer not to use the web form, call the Epsilon Consumer Preference Center at (866) 267-3861. This is the phone number Epsilon publishes on its own consumer information page for opt-out requests. Phone is a reasonable alternative if you would rather not type your address history into a web form.

5. Add the DMAchoice mail-preference suppression. Epsilon itself recommends registering with the mail-preference service to broaden your suppression across the wider direct-mail industry, not just Epsilon. Go to https://www.dmachoice.org/ and register. DMAchoice is the mail preference service operated by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA, formerly the Direct Marketing Association). A registration suppresses your address across participating member companies — a layer that complements the Epsilon opt-out rather than duplicating it.

6. Save your confirmation. Whether you used the form or the phone line, record the date and any confirmation or reference number. You will want it if you need to re-submit later, and it is your evidence that the request was made.

For a complete framework that sequences Epsilon alongside the other major brokers, see the guide to removing yourself from data brokers.

What to expect

Epsilon processes the opt-out by flagging your record as "Do Not Share." That flag is forward-looking: it does not yank back mail that is already in production. Catalog companies license audiences from Epsilon, build a print run, and then mail that run over several weeks. A mailing list that was rented before your opt-out took effect will keep generating catalogs for roughly 60 to 90 days regardless of your suppression — the effect shows up on the next audience Epsilon builds, not the one already in the mail stream. Give it a full mailing cycle, about 90 days, before judging whether catalog volume has dropped.

Expect the suppression to be durable but not necessarily permanent in the way you might hope. The advantage of Epsilon's "Do Not Share" model over a hard delete is that it persists: when a contributing catalog company re-uploads its customer file (which member companies do continuously), Epsilon's suppression record is supposed to re-apply your opt-out to the new data. That is genuinely better than brokers that delete and then silently re-ingest you months later. Even so, the FTC's consumer guidance on data brokers recommends treating opt-outs as an ongoing practice rather than a one-time task, because no suppression is guaranteed to catch every downstream copy of a record that has already propagated. A practical habit is to re-confirm your Epsilon and DMAchoice status once a year.

The DMAchoice registration has its own timeline — it can take up to a couple of months to fully filter through member mailers, on a similar 90-day horizon. Stacking the Epsilon opt-out and the DMAchoice registration on the same day means both timelines run in parallel, so you are not waiting for one to finish before starting the other.

How this stops catalog mail

Epsilon and the Abacus Cooperative are the clearest illustration of why this site argues for opting out upstream. The supply chain runs like this: a catalog retailer contributes its customer transaction file to the Abacus co-op → Epsilon pools that file with the transaction data of thousands of other catalog and retail members → Epsilon models the pooled data into targeted audiences ("buyers of home goods by mail in the last 12 months," for example) → another catalog company rents that audience → your address prints on a label and the catalog lands in your mailbox. Your record is not sitting in one catalog company's basement; it is in a shared marketing co-op that every member can draw from.

That is what makes the Epsilon opt-out structurally different from cancelling one catalog. Cancelling a catalog removes you from one node at the very end of the chain — the printer. Suppressing your record in the Abacus co-op removes you from the shared pool near the source, so the next dozen catalog companies that rent an Epsilon audience never receive your address to begin with. It is the difference between bailing water and plugging the hole. Combined with DMAchoice and removal from the people-search brokers that also feed list vendors, the Epsilon opt-out is one of the highest-leverage single actions available for reducing catalog mail, precisely because it sits so high in the supply chain.

Keep reading

• Remove Yourself from Data Brokers: The Complete Guide — the full prioritized removal sequence that places Epsilon among the major marketing-data hubs.
• How Data Brokers Get Your Address — explains the purchase-history and public-record sources that feed co-ops like Abacus.
• How to Opt Out of Acxiom — Acxiom is the other enterprise marketing-data giant with a catalog supply-chain link; opt out of both for fuller coverage.
• How to Opt Out of Spokeo — a people-search broker that catalog list vendors also reference; the removal process differs from Epsilon's.
• California CCPA Opt-Out Rights — California residents have a statutory right to demand deletion from brokers like Epsilon, not just suppression.
• External: Want to stop all junk mail, not just catalog-related data brokers? The optout.ws pillar covers the broader junk-mail, spam, and telemarketing opt-out landscape.