"Log in to unsubscribe from this e-mail": annoying, possibly illegal

Everyday, we all open our e-mail inboxes and are greeted by an avalanche of e-mails we don't want, don't need, never had to see. The most foolproof way to banish these particular strains of e-mails from our inbox should be unsubscribing, usually via a link in the e-mail itself. But all too often, we find that workflow looks something like this:

We click the unsubscribe link, and are taken to the website of the business sending the e-mail (let's call it YouPinFace). The site asks us to log in. Now, our interest in this site is so low, we haven't visited, let alone logged in, for months. Our login info is like so many cat videos posted to YouPinFace: briefly cherished, then forgotten.

We try some usernames and passwords, to no avail. Sigh. So we click the "forgot username?" link, and boom, another e-mail with our YouPinFace username. Back to the site: enter username, click "forgot password?" and get yet another e-mail with a password reset link. Finally, we can log in to YouPinFace, only to be faced with multi-tiered menus that hide the e-mail unsubscription checkbox in the darkest, dankest corner of our account settings.