Why do I have to accept 3 email lists that I don't want when signing up for this forum?

The fact that I have to sign up for 3 email lists that I don’t want to be able to join this forum is coercive. It detracts from my expectations of this platform due to the forced opt-in at the expensive of being able to join the forum. I’ll be unsubscribing to all of them as soon as I can, but honestly that won’t undue the bad taste in my mouth.

@Community-Team, this is in your area.

We sincerely apologize for the negative experience you encountered while attempting to join our forum. We understand your frustration regarding the required email list subscriptions.

We value your feedback and will use it to improve our sign-up process in the future.

To rectify this, we will unsubscribe the email address associated with your forum account from all the mailing lists (this might take a week to process).

We hope this helps to improve your experience with our platform. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any further questions or concerns.

Having just been forced to sign up myself from an EU country, I would also point out that requiring people to opt-in to unwanted emails is very much illegal under EU Direct Marketing rules.