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How does this work from a technical perspective? If I forward mail to this service instead of clicking the 'unsubscribe' link, then how do they 'unsubscribe' m

How does this work from a technical perspective? If I forward mail to this service instead of clicking the 'unsubscribe' link, then how do they 'unsubscribe' me on my behalf? In order to complete the unsubscription process, the newsletter owner needs to receive an email (usually generated automatically by the mail client when clicking the 'unsubscribe link') that comes from the person being unsubscribed. If I outsource this process, this means that 'please-unsubscribe.com' will need to spoof emails from me on my behalf and send them the email specified in the List-Unsubscribe email header. If spoofed emails are not used and they come from 'please-unsubscribe.com' this won't be very actionable to the newsletter owner. From their perspective, they're now going to get 'unsubscribe' notifications that all come from an email at 'please-unsubscribe.com' which never signed up to the newsletter in the first place. This all assumes that the newsletter unsubscription process is using the email based method instead of the link based method (which is a good assumption email-based is more common).

BenjiWiebe 6y ago
It's not at all common anymore to use email replies for unsubscribing. All the marketing emails I get have unsubscribe links, and it's been that way for a few years at least.
- robertelder 6y ago
  I just checked a few newsletter emails in my inbox, and they all offer List-Unsubscribe: mailto: based unsubscription. From what I see, it is quite universal and more common than link-based unsubscription. Newsletter providers prefer not to use the url based unsubscription because some email providers will crawl the URLs in emails and automatically unsubscribe people without them knowing. It's also possible that you're talking about a 'link' (a href) in the email body that goes to the newsletter provider's site and ask them a bunch of questions (why are you unsubscribing etc.). That's a different concept entirely. From what I've seen, the email-based way is the primary unsubscription method in use today. Even when you use the gmail feature "Mark this as spam", depending on what you click, it will just send an email on your behalf to the to whatever is specified in the List-Unsubscribe: mailto: header.
  - iamacyborg 6y ago
    > From what I've seen, the email-based way is the primary unsubscription method in use today. It's not. Most people unsubscribe by clicking a link in the email. What you're referring to is the list-unsub header which is again a different concept to what the person above you is saying regarding replying to an email and asking to be opted out.
    - robertelder 6y ago
      It may very well be the case that users more often click a link to unsubscribe directly on the site more than they click the 'unsubscribe' feature in the email client (I don't have any stats on that). The original question remains though: How does the stated service here work when there is only a List-Unsubscribe: header and no web form?
      - iamacyborg 6y ago
        It's illegal (and mostly impossible with most ESP's) to not send a commercial email with a valid unsubscribe link. If you're receiving email without one you're better off marking it as the spam it is.

BenjiWiebe 6y ago

It's not at all common anymore to use email replies for unsubscribing. All the marketing emails I get have unsubscribe links, and it's been that way for a few years at least.

robertelder 6y ago
I just checked a few newsletter emails in my inbox, and they all offer List-Unsubscribe: mailto: based unsubscription. From what I see, it is quite universal and more common than link-based unsubscription. Newsletter providers prefer not to use the url based unsubscription because some email providers will crawl the URLs in emails and automatically unsubscribe people without them knowing. It's also possible that you're talking about a 'link' (a href) in the email body that goes to the newsletter provider's site and ask them a bunch of questions (why are you unsubscribing etc.). That's a different concept entirely. From what I've seen, the email-based way is the primary unsubscription method in use today. Even when you use the gmail feature "Mark this as spam", depending on what you click, it will just send an email on your behalf to the to whatever is specified in the List-Unsubscribe: mailto: header.
- iamacyborg 6y ago
  > From what I've seen, the email-based way is the primary unsubscription method in use today. It's not. Most people unsubscribe by clicking a link in the email. What you're referring to is the list-unsub header which is again a different concept to what the person above you is saying regarding replying to an email and asking to be opted out.
  - robertelder 6y ago
    It may very well be the case that users more often click a link to unsubscribe directly on the site more than they click the 'unsubscribe' feature in the email client (I don't have any stats on that). The original question remains though: How does the stated service here work when there is only a List-Unsubscribe: header and no web form?
    - iamacyborg 6y ago
      It's illegal (and mostly impossible with most ESP's) to not send a commercial email with a valid unsubscribe link. If you're receiving email without one you're better off marking it as the spam it is.