[filburt1]

Your analogy to spam lists is flawed for a couple reasons:

1. In the case of a spam list, you didn't explicitly request to join. Also remember that by default vB has double opt-in (loose for the analogy but the idea is there: e-mail confirmation after signup).

2. In the case of a spam list, you're receiving messages and not posting. In the case of forums, it's mostly posting messages. The way to opt out of that is to disable all contact options in your user CP (including admin e-mails), log out, and simply not return.

For the view of a forum administrator, it's useful to keep accounts to have records of IP addresses, e-mail addresses, etc. so multiple accounts don't correspond to the same user (a rule violation at most forums).