4 ms·

There is a surprising number of people who don't know how to unsubscribe. To them, the spam button is their first response.

jlarocco 11y ago
I'm not sure it's the email recipient who are clueless here. As far as I'm concerned, if a company or group is emailing me, and it's not related to a specific purchase I've made with them, then it's spam, and I mark it as such. I don't care if you tricked me into opting-in through some fine print somewhere or I missed the opt-out button on a form one time or that you don't think it's spam or whatever. Unless I've very explicitly taken an action to get your email, OR it's a receipt, order information, etc. then it's spam. If it's inconvenient for the person sending the email, good.
czep 11y ago
A reaction to all the poorly configured unsubscribe landing pages. I click unsubscribe, wait 15 seconds for a page to load offering me to "review my subscription settings" filled with 99 checkboxes I have to tick individually, followed by having to enter my email address again "to confirm", and then half the time getting a 500 error. So I've been trained to just hit the spam button, it's a lot easier and simpler way to ensure I won't see that crap again.
ufmace 11y ago
Pretty understandable considering how many marketers and website developers don't know how to and/or don't care to make an unsubscribe button that works. Click a few dozen that make you type your email again (haven't they heard of tokens?), uncheck to unsubscribe from 20 different types of newsletter, find a bunch of email settings in your account settings, supposedly take 48 hours to take effect, have no effect at all, or the page doesn't even load, and you start to think it's easier to just hit "report spam" and move on with your day. As I posted elsewhere on this thread, I'm inclined to think that if you don't have a clear unsubscribe button that works immediately with no extra effort, then you are spam.
LeoNatan25 11y ago
Funny. Since I never subscribed, it is exactly the spam I want to report as spam.
xenophonf 11y ago
I always hear people claim this, and yet I've never signed up to TechTargetWatch or whatever the hell these people call themselves. And curiously, they're always emailing a spamtrap. And as soon as I unsubscribe from TechTargetWatch, I start getting spam from WatchTechTargets, to whom I've also never subscribed, and who also deliver to the same spamtrap address. But never mind that, I have a rather more paranoid perspective on not using the unsubscribe link. Clicking through to that unsubscribe page... - indicates that the email address is valid - indicates that the email address goes to a person - affords the opportunity to set a tracking cookie or fingerprint the browser - associates the tracking cookie/browser fingerprint with a person No thanks.

jlarocco 11y ago

I'm not sure it's the email recipient who are clueless here. As far as I'm concerned, if a company or group is emailing me, and it's not related to a specific purchase I've made with them, then it's spam, and I mark it as such. I don't care if you tricked me into opting-in through some fine print somewhere or I missed the opt-out button on a form one time or that you don't think it's spam or whatever. Unless I've very explicitly taken an action to get your email, OR it's a receipt, order information, etc. then it's spam. If it's inconvenient for the person sending the email, good.

czep 11y ago

A reaction to all the poorly configured unsubscribe landing pages. I click unsubscribe, wait 15 seconds for a page to load offering me to "review my subscription settings" filled with 99 checkboxes I have to tick individually, followed by having to enter my email address again "to confirm", and then half the time getting a 500 error. So I've been trained to just hit the spam button, it's a lot easier and simpler way to ensure I won't see that crap again.

ufmace 11y ago

Pretty understandable considering how many marketers and website developers don't know how to and/or don't care to make an unsubscribe button that works. Click a few dozen that make you type your email again (haven't they heard of tokens?), uncheck to unsubscribe from 20 different types of newsletter, find a bunch of email settings in your account settings, supposedly take 48 hours to take effect, have no effect at all, or the page doesn't even load, and you start to think it's easier to just hit "report spam" and move on with your day. As I posted elsewhere on this thread, I'm inclined to think that if you don't have a clear unsubscribe button that works immediately with no extra effort, then you are spam.

LeoNatan25 11y ago

Funny. Since I never subscribed, it is exactly the spam I want to report as spam.

xenophonf 11y ago

I always hear people claim this, and yet I've never signed up to TechTargetWatch or whatever the hell these people call themselves. And curiously, they're always emailing a spamtrap. And as soon as I unsubscribe from TechTargetWatch, I start getting spam from WatchTechTargets, to whom I've also never subscribed, and who also deliver to the same spamtrap address. But never mind that, I have a rather more paranoid perspective on not using the unsubscribe link. Clicking through to that unsubscribe page... - indicates that the email address is valid - indicates that the email address goes to a person - affords the opportunity to set a tracking cookie or fingerprint the browser - associates the tracking cookie/browser fingerprint with a person No thanks.