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the subscriber stuff is the worst. I unsubscribe from a marketing list and a month later the emails are back under a different name. They just create a new mark

the subscriber stuff is the worst. I unsubscribe from a marketing list and a month later the emails are back under a different name. They just create a new marketing category so you have to unsubscribe again

NegativeLatency 6y ago
linkedin just reset all my unsubscribed preferences this morning
pwdisswordfish2 6y ago
If you reply in order to "unsubscribe" doesn't this provide the spammer with "email validation", i.e., they know it is a working address and someone is reading the mail sent to it.
- m463 6y ago
  A lot (the majority?) of email clients load remote images by default, so just viewing the email may provide validation. In apple mail, even if you turn it off it will happily load the remote images if you try to forward the email. I found this particularly troublesome when I wanted to forward a phishing attempt to IT, and Little Snitch showed mail trying to connect to the phishing site. (this was not on catalina, maybe it is fixed?)
- kerkeslager 6y ago
  Well, there are two categories of spam worth talking about: 1. Spam from people who are just brute-forcing the space of possible email addresses. In this case, yes, clicking unsubscribe gives them information. But I will say, this spam is generally pretty well taken care of by existing spam filters, so personally I'm not concerned about this. 2. Spam from people who got your email address via some interaction. Maybe you bought something from them, for example. This sort of spam, they already have your email address and know it works. The upside here is that if you've made a purchase from them, it's much harder for them to avoid regulation due to the money trail, so if you unsubscribe, they have to actually unsubscribe you. There are loopholes in regulation, however.
  - pwdisswordfish2 6y ago
    What happens when a user creates an email address just for a single purpose, e.g., making a single purchase, then she never uses the email address again? How strong is the assumption that all users have only one email address and will keep that address long-term? I remember hearing that one could keep getting AWS free trials simply by signing up with a new email address.

NegativeLatency 6y ago

linkedin just reset all my unsubscribed preferences this morning

pwdisswordfish2 6y ago

If you reply in order to "unsubscribe" doesn't this provide the spammer with "email validation", i.e., they know it is a working address and someone is reading the mail sent to it.

m463 6y ago
A lot (the majority?) of email clients load remote images by default, so just viewing the email may provide validation. In apple mail, even if you turn it off it will happily load the remote images if you try to forward the email. I found this particularly troublesome when I wanted to forward a phishing attempt to IT, and Little Snitch showed mail trying to connect to the phishing site. (this was not on catalina, maybe it is fixed?)
kerkeslager 6y ago
Well, there are two categories of spam worth talking about: 1. Spam from people who are just brute-forcing the space of possible email addresses. In this case, yes, clicking unsubscribe gives them information. But I will say, this spam is generally pretty well taken care of by existing spam filters, so personally I'm not concerned about this. 2. Spam from people who got your email address via some interaction. Maybe you bought something from them, for example. This sort of spam, they already have your email address and know it works. The upside here is that if you've made a purchase from them, it's much harder for them to avoid regulation due to the money trail, so if you unsubscribe, they have to actually unsubscribe you. There are loopholes in regulation, however.
- pwdisswordfish2 6y ago
  What happens when a user creates an email address just for a single purpose, e.g., making a single purchase, then she never uses the email address again? How strong is the assumption that all users have only one email address and will keep that address long-term? I remember hearing that one could keep getting AWS free trials simply by signing up with a new email address.