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Maybe I've been living under a rock, but this surprised me: > recipient list ... with their subscribe/unsubscribe status > ...API lets us interrogate and twid
by gumby 3y ago
Maybe I've been living under a rock, but this surprised me:
> recipient list ... with their subscribe/unsubscribe status
> ...API lets us interrogate and twiddle a contact's subscribe/unsubscribe status. It can remain the master database.
I have assumed that when I unsubscribe from a mailing list my entry is deleted from the subscriber database. Apparently not.
If this is really the case this makes me want give up on trying to unsubscribe and instead just mark things as spam. Fuck these people.
- ljlolel 3y agoThink about it. If they don’t keep your email that you unsubscribed then if it comes in through another data source or is reloaded then it’ll subscribe you again. Keeping track ensures they don’t do it accidentally or automatically. Or for exports/backups etc.
- chomp 3y agoYep, I maintain a few Mailchimp mailing lists for our nonprofit, I periodically reaggregate, import, pull in new data feeds, etc. and Mailchimp will maintain the unsubscribe list. If I reimport an email on accident that's already unsubscribed, I'd never want to accidentally re-email the person again.
- gumby 3y agoShould you not want to only subscribe people who explicitly ask? When I get unsolicited mail I definitely send it straight to trash, I don't even try to be nice.
- sneak 3y agoPeople like us are outliers. Most people get notifications for every email they receive, and are used to getting emails from every business with which they transact.
- ljlolel 3y agoYou can be moving between different providers or accounts
- gumby 3y agoWhat do you mean? If I change my email address, having the old one on file won't help keep me from getting spam at the new one.
- fragmede 3y agoHow do you want unsubscribing to work!? If they don't keep your entry around, marked as unsubscribe, the next time your email address gets added to the list, you'll get subscribed again. Keeping your address around prevents you from getting spammed. It's not some nefarious plot.
- convolvatron 3y agosending mail to a bunch of random people you got in a giant list you bought that have never associated with you is a nefarious plot
- Tijdreiziger 3y agoThat seems like an excessively uncharitable interpretation.
- gumby 3y agoWhat would be a more charitable interpretation? I'm open to pursuasion. But I cannot imagine a case where it is legit to send an automatic message to someone who did not explicitly give permission to receive it.
- Tijdreiziger 3y agoCharitable interpretation 1: non-tech org with systems that integrate poorly, which they work around by shuffling around data dumps/Excel sheets periodically. This means that customers (who may have initially consented but unsubscribed later) could end up being dumped into whatever mailing list software repeatedly. Charitable interpretation 2: list of consenting subscribers from a one-time campaign, but due to human error, someone ends up importing the same list again 3 months down the line.
- gumby 3y agoSounds like organizations that shouldn't have my personal data in the first place, since they don't have suitable processes to look after it.
- steve_adams_86 3y agoIn the simplest terms, you can’t even adhere to various regulations (like CAN-SPAM) if you don’t retain who you’re supposed to suppress emails to. Arguably this information should be stored encrypted, but I suspect that’s very rare.
- gumby 3y agoIf I try to resubscribe that's my business. If you add people who aren't asking to subscribe that's the definition of spam (the "unsolicited" part of "UCE")
- stickfigure 3y agoUnfortunately the world is nowhere near that simple. Big companies (and small companies that have been around for a while) accumulate multiple lists - they merge, they fork, they get transferred from one system to another. If you use absence/presence, then a merge of (unsubscribed || subscribed) will always result in subscribed - probably not what you want. Sorry if this little bit of sausage-making bothers you, but it's pretty much how every mailing list works everywhere.
- fatfingerd 3y agoMailchimp did have a secret key per org specifically to calculate a email address hash id that was unique.. This hash is enough to prevent resubscription when other feeds are brought in. That could at least prevent new employees from seeing my email long after I requested privacy.