7 ms·

So what's wrong with hitting spam?

NikolaeVarius 6y ago
It clutters up spam
macspoofing 6y ago
Especially since in many instances, you don't actually want a dialogue with the spammer. I don't want to 'unsubscribe' myself given that I didn't 'subscribe' myself in the first place. Also, why would I let the spammer know that I read the email and my email is active?
- jagged-chisel 6y ago
  In this case, you're doing the right thing: you didn't ask for it, it's spam. Presumably, you classifying it as spam helps the spam filter learn and apply that knowledge to others' inboxes, too.
nickthegreek 6y ago
They still come to me when I hit spam, and the unsubscribe button doesn't always work either. I still find myself using the distributors unsubscribe button most of the time.
guptaneil 6y ago
For the mailing list owner, it’s bad because then their emails are more likely to end up in the spam folder for other subscribers too.
- notyourwork 6y ago
  Spam is spam. The sad state of things is that people are bombarded with garbage, exponentially worse than the physical mail system used to be. The engagement and conversion rate on email is so low that the volume continually increases to convert further.
  - guptaneil 6y ago
    What about a mailing list you signed up for and enjoyed at first, but lost interest after one year? Was that email always spam? Is it spam now? Not all messages that get put into the spam folder are actually spam. There’s a wide variety of emails that aren’t spam, but also aren’t necessarily wanted anymore either. Those are the ones this article is focusing on. Make it easy for your readers to unsubscribe so they don’t call you spam.
  - antsar 6y ago
    > exponentially worse than the physical mail system used to be Really? Ignoring the "Spam" folder (which I never check), I get way less junk email than snail mail. And the snail mail is reliably 95% unsolicited garbage. To be fair, Fastmail lets you set rules to route stuff to Junk, whereas USPS actively facilitates routing garbage to your mailbox [0]. [0] https://www.usps.com/business/advertise-with-mail.htm https://www.usps.com/business/advertise-with-mail.htm
    - notyourwork 6y ago
      You must be older because I've found my parents get a lot of junk mail. My wife and I get very little junk mail though we also rarely provide our physical address. I get tons of email, a lot of it being spam. I've had my email address for well over a decade.
      - antsar 6y ago
        I'm ~28. > rarely provide our physical address This. We order lots of stuff online, and I'd guess our info has been resold to 3rd parties many times. I provide a PO box whenever possible, but if something is being shipped...
- JshWright 6y ago
  I generally click "unsubscribe" in the email, then if I have to do more than click a big, obvious confirmation button on that page I close the tab and flag it as spam.
  - eli 6y ago
    Fun fact: at least in the US, the CAN-SPAM law is actually pretty specific about how unsubscribe pages work. If it requires more than typing your email address and clicking a button then it is probably not compliant.
    - choward 6y ago
      Why are they even allowed to make you type your email address? I used different email addresses for everything I sign up for so I have to go back to the email to see what I used. Very inconvenient.
      - eli 6y ago
        It's not a great law and it was passed almost two decades ago. This is actually one of the parts they got mostly right.
- MereInterest 6y ago
  For the mailing list owner, that's a risk that comes with sending out spam. If I have no prior relationship with a company, then I have no reason not to mark an email as spam. If I have a prior relationship with a company, but they are sending out unrequested emails, then I should mark it as spam. For example, if an email address is provided for package delivery updates, but is then used for unrequested periodic advertisements, that is spam.
  - guptaneil 6y ago
    What if it’s a mailing list you signed up for but lost interest in?
    - MereInterest 6y ago
      In that case, I do have an obligation to unsubscribe rather than reporting the email as spam. I view the "report spam" button as a form of punishment, meant to disincentivize bad behavior. Misuse of email addresses should come with the risk of having all emails marked as spam. Losing interest in a mailing list that previously interested me is an expected result over time, and would not be appropriate to report as spam.
  - hundchenkatze 6y ago
    Yes, but GP was asking about consequences of clicking the spam button vs just unsubscribing. Sure if you start getting unsolicited emails, by all means click that Spam button. However, if you're just tired of getting delivery updates just unsubscribe.
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  This is why I'm glad I use an email service with a personalized spam filter. Gmail's spam filter too heavily assumes one person's spam is everyone's spam. Whereas mine is pretty reliably never sending false positives to my spam folder. Fastmail wins again.
eli 6y ago
Github notifications that you signed up for but now don't want any more aren't spam. Marking them as spam messes with Github's deliverability to all GMail users and may prevent you from getting notifications in your inbox in the future if you decide to sign up again.
- joombaga 6y ago
  Should I be concerned with how Google treats my signal globally? Honest question. If I were Google I'd recognize that how the email is stopped before getting to a user's inbox probably won't matter to them and factor that into how the unsubscribe and mark as spam buttons work. As a user I expect my treatment of "mark as spam" on a GitHub notification to be more heavily weighted in my personal spam algorithm than the global spam algorithm.
  - eli 6y ago
    I don't think anyone outside Google knows the exact details, but GMail clearly calculates a global reputation score for each sender that is influenced by what percentage of recipients mark its messages as spam. Then there's some additional weighting on top of that based on your personal actions. Additionally most reputable email senders have a "feedback loop" set up with Google, Hotmail, and Yahoo where clicking that Report Spam button actually passes your email address back to the sender's email system. For example if you click Report Spam on one of our email newsletters in GMail, we will flag your record in our database and not send you any more messages even if you specifically sign up for a newsletter in the future. (Please don't test this.)
silviogutierrez 6y ago
I try to be reasonable here. If it's something from a business I transacted with in the past or recognize the name, I will unsubscribe. I don't consider it spam. And I don't want to hurt their reputation. I do keep track of if I already unsubscribed from a related list. Sometimes "unsubscribe from all" is completely ignored. Which really angers me. If it's a random, clearly bought newsletter list from a related list, it depends on my mood. Likely spam. Other notorious example: business A founder also founds (unrelated) business B. They just email their entire A client base with zero association to A. Big peeve of mine. -- Edits (some more ramblings) -- My personal favorite: the "I want to receive marketing email" checkbox that rechecks if you have an unrelated issue with your transaction. Say, invalid CC details. Still, even with these boxes, I think my standard is just: "I did business with them, I will get at least 1 marketing email. I'm ok with that. I will unsubscribe and not hear from them again." Anything past that is unacceptable. To be clear: that's not how I think it should be. It's just how businesses, even small, genuine mom and pop shops, have been taught to operate. It's cultural. It reminds me a lot of tipping in the US. I'm vehemently anti-tipping "culture" because a standard 20% is the opposite of rewarding for performance. But I still tip at a baseline of 18%+. It's too ingrained. And I'm not going to protest by not tipping and try to change it. I think we've come too far unless changed by law or restaurant management. Same goes for marketing emails.
- rlpb 6y ago
  > If it's something from a business I transacted with in the past or recognize the name, I will unsubscribe. I don't consider it spam. I do consider it spam, unless the email is actually about a previous transaction. I don't equate doing a transaction with a business with permission for them to bother me about something unrelated.
- inetknght 6y ago
  > I try to be reasonable here. I try to be a little more reasonable here. If it's a business that required me to sign up to do business with them and didn't allow me to opt out of their marketing emails then I have no problem whatsoever clicking the Spam button. And, if their marketing emails go to a third party domain -- such as a bulk emailer -- then it goes into the Phishing bucket regardless of whether or not I opted out of their marketing emails.
jivings 6y ago
Personal preference, but I feel like unsubscribing or hitting spam is you sending your sentiment back to the sender in two different ways. If you unsubscribe you're saying that you're no longer interested in the list, you see the merit but don't want to receive it any more for whatever reason. If you hit spam you're saying this email should never have come to me, or I don't want to expend the effort to stop it from coming to me. If the sender makes unsubscribing as easy as hitting spam (by making sure the Gmail unsub button works for example) then they make it more likely for their recipients to send the appropriate feedback - ie not hit the spam button.
amelius 6y ago
Because Google trains its spam filters on user feedback. If people start unsubscribing by hitting spam, then those users who still want to receive the mailing may have to search for it in their spam boxes.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
gumby 6y ago
When you ark it as spam it helps train google's spam fighting that mail like that is spam. Now if it's unsolicited stuff -- SPAM -- no problem. But if it's a list you once signed up for and now no longer want, you're telling google -- for everyone -- that mail like that is spam. Even people who signed up for it (like you did) and still want it. That's unfair to the company and unfair to all those other people too. But someone randomly blasting you with crap as is the usual case (and I includes that company you once did business with and who signed you up without your permission): that's what the spam button is for.
mobjack 6y ago
Spam doesn't remove you from the senders email list. While many senders will remove people who hit spam on their emails but not all do it. After a while, emails could be getting past the spam filter again. Unsubscribing is usually more effective at stopping unwanted emails from any semi legitimate company as they are required by law to honor it. If you want double protection, you can always do both.

It clutters up spam

Especially since in many instances, you don't actually want a dialogue with the spammer. I don't want to 'unsubscribe' myself given that I didn't 'subscribe' myself in the first place. Also, why would I let the spammer know that I read the email and my email is active?

jagged-chisel 6y ago
In this case, you're doing the right thing: you didn't ask for it, it's spam. Presumably, you classifying it as spam helps the spam filter learn and apply that knowledge to others' inboxes, too.

nickthegreek 6y ago

They still come to me when I hit spam, and the unsubscribe button doesn't always work either. I still find myself using the distributors unsubscribe button most of the time.

guptaneil 6y ago

For the mailing list owner, it’s bad because then their emails are more likely to end up in the spam folder for other subscribers too.

notyourwork 6y ago
Spam is spam. The sad state of things is that people are bombarded with garbage, exponentially worse than the physical mail system used to be. The engagement and conversion rate on email is so low that the volume continually increases to convert further.
- guptaneil 6y ago
  What about a mailing list you signed up for and enjoyed at first, but lost interest after one year? Was that email always spam? Is it spam now? Not all messages that get put into the spam folder are actually spam. There’s a wide variety of emails that aren’t spam, but also aren’t necessarily wanted anymore either. Those are the ones this article is focusing on. Make it easy for your readers to unsubscribe so they don’t call you spam.
- antsar 6y ago
  > exponentially worse than the physical mail system used to be Really? Ignoring the "Spam" folder (which I never check), I get way less junk email than snail mail. And the snail mail is reliably 95% unsolicited garbage. To be fair, Fastmail lets you set rules to route stuff to Junk, whereas USPS actively facilitates routing garbage to your mailbox [0]. [0] https://www.usps.com/business/advertise-with-mail.htm https://www.usps.com/business/advertise-with-mail.htm
  - notyourwork 6y ago
    You must be older because I've found my parents get a lot of junk mail. My wife and I get very little junk mail though we also rarely provide our physical address. I get tons of email, a lot of it being spam. I've had my email address for well over a decade.
    - antsar 6y ago
      I'm ~28. > rarely provide our physical address This. We order lots of stuff online, and I'd guess our info has been resold to 3rd parties many times. I provide a PO box whenever possible, but if something is being shipped...
JshWright 6y ago
I generally click "unsubscribe" in the email, then if I have to do more than click a big, obvious confirmation button on that page I close the tab and flag it as spam.
- eli 6y ago
  Fun fact: at least in the US, the CAN-SPAM law is actually pretty specific about how unsubscribe pages work. If it requires more than typing your email address and clicking a button then it is probably not compliant.
  - choward 6y ago
    Why are they even allowed to make you type your email address? I used different email addresses for everything I sign up for so I have to go back to the email to see what I used. Very inconvenient.
    - eli 6y ago
      It's not a great law and it was passed almost two decades ago. This is actually one of the parts they got mostly right.
MereInterest 6y ago
For the mailing list owner, that's a risk that comes with sending out spam. If I have no prior relationship with a company, then I have no reason not to mark an email as spam. If I have a prior relationship with a company, but they are sending out unrequested emails, then I should mark it as spam. For example, if an email address is provided for package delivery updates, but is then used for unrequested periodic advertisements, that is spam.
- guptaneil 6y ago
  What if it’s a mailing list you signed up for but lost interest in?
  - MereInterest 6y ago
    In that case, I do have an obligation to unsubscribe rather than reporting the email as spam. I view the "report spam" button as a form of punishment, meant to disincentivize bad behavior. Misuse of email addresses should come with the risk of having all emails marked as spam. Losing interest in a mailing list that previously interested me is an expected result over time, and would not be appropriate to report as spam.
- hundchenkatze 6y ago
  Yes, but GP was asking about consequences of clicking the spam button vs just unsubscribing. Sure if you start getting unsolicited emails, by all means click that Spam button. However, if you're just tired of getting delivery updates just unsubscribe.
ocdtrekkie 6y ago
This is why I'm glad I use an email service with a personalized spam filter. Gmail's spam filter too heavily assumes one person's spam is everyone's spam. Whereas mine is pretty reliably never sending false positives to my spam folder. Fastmail wins again.

eli 6y ago

Github notifications that you signed up for but now don't want any more aren't spam. Marking them as spam messes with Github's deliverability to all GMail users and may prevent you from getting notifications in your inbox in the future if you decide to sign up again.

joombaga 6y ago
Should I be concerned with how Google treats my signal globally? Honest question. If I were Google I'd recognize that how the email is stopped before getting to a user's inbox probably won't matter to them and factor that into how the unsubscribe and mark as spam buttons work. As a user I expect my treatment of "mark as spam" on a GitHub notification to be more heavily weighted in my personal spam algorithm than the global spam algorithm.
- eli 6y ago
  I don't think anyone outside Google knows the exact details, but GMail clearly calculates a global reputation score for each sender that is influenced by what percentage of recipients mark its messages as spam. Then there's some additional weighting on top of that based on your personal actions. Additionally most reputable email senders have a "feedback loop" set up with Google, Hotmail, and Yahoo where clicking that Report Spam button actually passes your email address back to the sender's email system. For example if you click Report Spam on one of our email newsletters in GMail, we will flag your record in our database and not send you any more messages even if you specifically sign up for a newsletter in the future. (Please don't test this.)

silviogutierrez 6y ago

I try to be reasonable here. If it's something from a business I transacted with in the past or recognize the name, I will unsubscribe. I don't consider it spam. And I don't want to hurt their reputation. I do keep track of if I already unsubscribed from a related list. Sometimes "unsubscribe from all" is completely ignored. Which really angers me. If it's a random, clearly bought newsletter list from a related list, it depends on my mood. Likely spam. Other notorious example: business A founder also founds (unrelated) business B. They just email their entire A client base with zero association to A. Big peeve of mine. -- Edits (some more ramblings) -- My personal favorite: the "I want to receive marketing email" checkbox that rechecks if you have an unrelated issue with your transaction. Say, invalid CC details. Still, even with these boxes, I think my standard is just: "I did business with them, I will get at least 1 marketing email. I'm ok with that. I will unsubscribe and not hear from them again." Anything past that is unacceptable. To be clear: that's not how I think it should be. It's just how businesses, even small, genuine mom and pop shops, have been taught to operate. It's cultural. It reminds me a lot of tipping in the US. I'm vehemently anti-tipping "culture" because a standard 20% is the opposite of rewarding for performance. But I still tip at a baseline of 18%+. It's too ingrained. And I'm not going to protest by not tipping and try to change it. I think we've come too far unless changed by law or restaurant management. Same goes for marketing emails.

rlpb 6y ago
> If it's something from a business I transacted with in the past or recognize the name, I will unsubscribe. I don't consider it spam. I do consider it spam, unless the email is actually about a previous transaction. I don't equate doing a transaction with a business with permission for them to bother me about something unrelated.
inetknght 6y ago
> I try to be reasonable here. I try to be a little more reasonable here. If it's a business that required me to sign up to do business with them and didn't allow me to opt out of their marketing emails then I have no problem whatsoever clicking the Spam button. And, if their marketing emails go to a third party domain -- such as a bulk emailer -- then it goes into the Phishing bucket regardless of whether or not I opted out of their marketing emails.

jivings 6y ago

Personal preference, but I feel like unsubscribing or hitting spam is you sending your sentiment back to the sender in two different ways. If you unsubscribe you're saying that you're no longer interested in the list, you see the merit but don't want to receive it any more for whatever reason. If you hit spam you're saying this email should never have come to me, or I don't want to expend the effort to stop it from coming to me. If the sender makes unsubscribing as easy as hitting spam (by making sure the Gmail unsub button works for example) then they make it more likely for their recipients to send the appropriate feedback - ie not hit the spam button.

amelius 6y ago

Because Google trains its spam filters on user feedback. If people start unsubscribing by hitting spam, then those users who still want to receive the mailing may have to search for it in their spam boxes.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

gumby 6y ago

When you ark it as spam it helps train google's spam fighting that mail like that is spam. Now if it's unsolicited stuff -- SPAM -- no problem. But if it's a list you once signed up for and now no longer want, you're telling google -- for everyone -- that mail like that is spam. Even people who signed up for it (like you did) and still want it. That's unfair to the company and unfair to all those other people too. But someone randomly blasting you with crap as is the usual case (and I includes that company you once did business with and who signed you up without your permission): that's what the spam button is for.

mobjack 6y ago

Spam doesn't remove you from the senders email list. While many senders will remove people who hit spam on their emails but not all do it. After a while, emails could be getting past the spam filter again. Unsubscribing is usually more effective at stopping unwanted emails from any semi legitimate company as they are required by law to honor it. If you want double protection, you can always do both.