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On the other hand, I’m seeing more and more legitimate stuff land in Gmail’s spam filter. Like virtually of San Francisco Marathon’s newsletters. Sure they’re

by Swizec 5y ago

On the other hand, I’m seeing more and more legitimate stuff land in Gmail’s spam filter. Like virtually of San Francisco Marathon’s newsletters. Sure they’re pushy and really really want you to sign up for more races and I definitely need to unsubscribe … but I did subscribe and that means it isn’t spam.

ghaff 5y ago
One of the things that I assume happens is that, even when people have explicitly signed up for something or at least not opted out of receiving updates etc., they'll just "report spam" rather than unsubscribe and when enough people do this it gets put in everyone's spam folder unless enough people reclassify it. There's not much stuff that ends up in my spam folder that I really care about and a fair bit I don't know how I got on some list. But relatively little of it is spam in the usual meaning of the term.
- everforward 5y ago
  > at least not opted out of receiving updates etc I still consider that spam; successfully hiding the checkbox from me doesn't mean that I want the emails. I report them as spam in the hopes that it will force them to switch to an opt-in system.
- qiskit 5y ago
  > they'll just "report spam" rather than unsubscribe I'm guessing this is a major part of it. But then again, if a legitimate service is so spammy that people will just "report as spam" rather than unsubscribing, maybe they should change their behavior.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    There's definitely a continuum from I signed up for your newsletter, to I attended your event/downloaded your document and opted in, to I didn't opt out, to random mails typically semi-relevant at best from someone who got my email from some list somewhere, to outright scams/offers to sell mailing lists/etc. Of course it depends somewhat on frequency etc. as well. I'll still mostly just unsubscribe if there's a link and usually reserve report spam for random crap that doesn't have an automated unsubscribe option. Pre-Covid, I attended a lot of events and that's probably has led to me getting on a lot of lists. Like it or not, no small part of the event industry is for companies to get leads.
  - Eyght 5y ago
    In e-commerce I've noticed that customers that request to be removed from the mailinglist and/or to have their info/account be deleted often forget about ever using the site. Then a few months later they order something and sign up for the newsletter again. When they receive their "first" newsletter they recognize the style and remember that they requested it to be cancelled, which leads to many angry emails and spam reports. An order form with no pre-selected "join newsletter" option doesn't seem to mitigate this problem. The obvious soloution is to save the customer's email in the mailinglist as unsubscribed, but afaik that's not legal if they request an account deletion.
    - dreamcompiler 5y ago
      Saving a SHA-256 of the email address seems like a perfect solution to this problem.
    - Swizec 5y ago
      My favorite problem are people who go “Never email me again about anything” then a few months later complain “Why didn’t you tell me about the new version?”
    - ghaff 5y ago
      I'm sure it depends on jurisdiction but that would presumably be saving PII after a removal request. I find the tabs on my personal Gmail help a lot. Most of the form stuff lands in Promotions or Updates which I glance at now and then. Occasionally there's something I'm actually interested in. I used to keep a separate email for orders and the like but over time I found that just became a black hole that I never looked at.
codetrotter 5y ago
> I’m seeing more and more legitimate stuff land in […] spam filter. I use iCloud Mail with a custom domain, after having self-hosted my mail for many years. I had some job interviews recently and in a couple of cases iCloud Mail was spam filtering the meeting invitations. Whoopsie! Fortunately in both cases we had communicated about when the meetings would take place outside of the invitations. So even though I didn’t see the invitation mails, I knew when the meetings would take place, and in the case of lacking a link to join one of the meetings I got them to send me another link for the meeting. And on the whole I will say that iCloud Mail is much more comfortable and convenient for me to use than continuing to self-host my mail. Both in terms of keeping spam out of my inbox, and in terms of mail that I send getting to other peoples inboxes rather than ending up in their spam.

by Swizec 5y ago

ghaff 5y ago

One of the things that I assume happens is that, even when people have explicitly signed up for something or at least not opted out of receiving updates etc., they'll just "report spam" rather than unsubscribe and when enough people do this it gets put in everyone's spam folder unless enough people reclassify it. There's not much stuff that ends up in my spam folder that I really care about and a fair bit I don't know how I got on some list. But relatively little of it is spam in the usual meaning of the term.

everforward 5y ago
> at least not opted out of receiving updates etc I still consider that spam; successfully hiding the checkbox from me doesn't mean that I want the emails. I report them as spam in the hopes that it will force them to switch to an opt-in system.
qiskit 5y ago
> they'll just "report spam" rather than unsubscribe I'm guessing this is a major part of it. But then again, if a legitimate service is so spammy that people will just "report as spam" rather than unsubscribing, maybe they should change their behavior.
- ghaff 5y ago
  There's definitely a continuum from I signed up for your newsletter, to I attended your event/downloaded your document and opted in, to I didn't opt out, to random mails typically semi-relevant at best from someone who got my email from some list somewhere, to outright scams/offers to sell mailing lists/etc. Of course it depends somewhat on frequency etc. as well. I'll still mostly just unsubscribe if there's a link and usually reserve report spam for random crap that doesn't have an automated unsubscribe option. Pre-Covid, I attended a lot of events and that's probably has led to me getting on a lot of lists. Like it or not, no small part of the event industry is for companies to get leads.
- Eyght 5y ago
  In e-commerce I've noticed that customers that request to be removed from the mailinglist and/or to have their info/account be deleted often forget about ever using the site. Then a few months later they order something and sign up for the newsletter again. When they receive their "first" newsletter they recognize the style and remember that they requested it to be cancelled, which leads to many angry emails and spam reports. An order form with no pre-selected "join newsletter" option doesn't seem to mitigate this problem. The obvious soloution is to save the customer's email in the mailinglist as unsubscribed, but afaik that's not legal if they request an account deletion.
  - dreamcompiler 5y ago
    Saving a SHA-256 of the email address seems like a perfect solution to this problem.
  - Swizec 5y ago
    My favorite problem are people who go “Never email me again about anything” then a few months later complain “Why didn’t you tell me about the new version?”
  - ghaff 5y ago
    I'm sure it depends on jurisdiction but that would presumably be saving PII after a removal request. I find the tabs on my personal Gmail help a lot. Most of the form stuff lands in Promotions or Updates which I glance at now and then. Occasionally there's something I'm actually interested in. I used to keep a separate email for orders and the like but over time I found that just became a black hole that I never looked at.

codetrotter 5y ago

> I’m seeing more and more legitimate stuff land in […] spam filter. I use iCloud Mail with a custom domain, after having self-hosted my mail for many years. I had some job interviews recently and in a couple of cases iCloud Mail was spam filtering the meeting invitations. Whoopsie! Fortunately in both cases we had communicated about when the meetings would take place outside of the invitations. So even though I didn’t see the invitation mails, I knew when the meetings would take place, and in the case of lacking a link to join one of the meetings I got them to send me another link for the meeting. And on the whole I will say that iCloud Mail is much more comfortable and convenient for me to use than continuing to self-host my mail. Both in terms of keeping spam out of my inbox, and in terms of mail that I send getting to other peoples inboxes rather than ending up in their spam.