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Oh sure, if it's hard to unsubscribe then I will totally use anti-spam mechanisms to block that as well. I am talking about the case where people engage the spa

by lucb1e 3y ago

Oh sure, if it's hard to unsubscribe then I will totally use anti-spam mechanisms to block that as well. I am talking about the case where people engage the spam button for email that they (1) can unsubscribe from using the standard one-click unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email, and (2) have either explicitly signed up for or that is otherwise from a legitimate sender that complies with your local laws and will honor the unsubscription. Spammers are absolutely not going to care about the unsubscribe link, in fact it will likely put you higher on their list for engaging with the email. By not understanding this difference, by not 'learning' how to use it as you say, it is very hard for services (e.g. messaging services also struggle with this) to know what is spam and what people newly want to stop receiving.

theamk 3y ago
> is otherwise from a legitimate sender that complies with your local laws and will honor the unsubscription. those are the worst.. If I don't remember subscribing I always mark them as spam, even if there is a big prominent "unsubscribe" button. I'd still be doing that if the unsubsrube was built into UI. Why? My email got on some list somewhere and now I am getting an emails from various "trusted partners". Sure, there is an unsubscribe button and I would not be surprised if it works _for that sender_ but it has no point as there will be a new sender next week. Marking everything like this as spam is the only reasonble resort. Yes, this will not save my inbox, but at least it might help the next person.
- lucb1e 3y ago
  > > is otherwise from a legitimate sender that complies with your local laws and will honor the unsubscription. > those are the worst If it's legal in your area to send unsolicited commercial email, obviously that problem is not just going to go away because it gains them a competitive advantage to do so. > [when m]y email got on some list somewhere and now I am getting an emails from various "trusted partners". Yea that isn't legal where I live. For me, that would totally fall in the "smash that report-as-spam button" category, so I can very much understand your sentiment
sScTE9qEMCxEk34 3y ago
> (1) can unsubscribe from using the standard one-click unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email, and (2) have either explicitly signed up for or that is otherwise from a legitimate sender that complies with your local laws and will honor the unsubscription. That's not the bar of spam. Spam existed well before legislation to combat it. Spam is anything that you don't want to receive and weren't asked if you wanted to receive. That includes a wide variety of emails which are legal in most jurisdictions (like the ones GP mentioned).
Macha 3y ago
> have either explicitly signed up for or that is otherwise from a legitimate sender that complies with your local laws and will honor the unsubscripti 2 points: I'd agree that using spam for something a user has signed up for would be unfair, but only in the sense that they understood clearly they were signing up for emails, and not, for example, a confusing opt out tick tied to their purchase. You totally deserve the spam box for that latter one. Similarly, honouring local requirements for unsubscribe is not enough to get you out of spam reports if you didn't have a reason to email me to begin with. That you have a new product or newsletter or corporate announcement isn't good enough, but many marketing people believe it is. The fact that they can't self police is why I'm ok with email providers being strict about this. Really the one thing I miss since moving from Gmail is the knowledge that my use of the spam button hurt deliverability for senders of spammy emails more widely than just my own inbox.
- lucb1e 3y ago
  > but only in the sense that they understood clearly they were signing up for emails, and not, for example, a confusing opt out tick tied to their purchase Agree! (With the side note that this is already illegal in my area.) > Really the one thing I miss since moving from Gmail is the knowledge that my use of the spam button hurt deliverability for senders of spammy emails more widely than just my own inbox. Agree here, too: a unified list of spammy senders would be nice so we can work together and keep inboxes clean everywhere. But it should cut both ways. A sibling comment mentioned they hit the spam button per the definition of "when I do not want to receive the email". That could mean a personal email from their mom that they weren't wanting to read on a sunday, a legitimate invoice for an activity they booked, or literally anything else. Those people should either be banned from influencing a sender's spam score, or at least be ranked 10-100x lower. (Taking this idea one step too far, probably:) We could even tie those email addresses to other services: just ask youtube, discord, HN, reddit, etc. how often flagging/reporting is used as super-downvote button. If those people are registered as willfully misunderstanding the purpose of the button, that frees up a lot of resources and can increase the rate of correct spam detection significantly by having good labeling on data.
gwbas1c 3y ago
> or that is otherwise from a legitimate sender that complies with your local laws and will honor the unsubscription. I think your (luvb1e's) issue is that you don't understand the fundamental definition of SPAM: SPAM is anything that the sender (not the recipient) defines as SPAM. For example, a few years ago I bought something from L. L. Bean. In addition to my order confirmation, shipping confirmation, thank you email, surveys, ect, they also automatically put me on their daily email flyer. All of these emails were legal. Some of the emails were in the "grey area" between legit email and SPAM. The daily email flyer that I never signed up for: 100% SPAM. (And 100% legal.) Remember: It's my inbox, so I define what I consider SPAM to be SPAM. L. L. Bean can't twist the definition of SPAM so that their SPAM is really something else, and then blame me for hitting the SPAM button.
- lucb1e 3y ago
  > It's my inbox, so I define what I consider SPAM That's like saying: it's my back yard, I'll decide which laws apply here and who can deal drugs here It's nice to decide on one's own what legislation should look like, but that muddles the detection of real spam. You are signaling to your email provider that this email should never have been sent and that the sender is dishonestly sending garbage around. If the email was legal in your area, I would say the problem lies there, because no amount of spam button pressing will solve the problem if they continue to have a commercial advantage by sending unsolicited commercial email.
  - gwbas1c 3y ago
    > real spam The daily flyer that I never signed up for is "real spam." It doesn't matter who sends it. You can't go and say, "oh, we're not spoofing and harvesting so we're not spam." That's just writing your own loophole so you can hijack my inbox and turn it into a billboard. And remember, I bear the burden of my inbox being full of email that I never subscribed to and will never read. Pushing the spam button has no consequence to me, but hopefully it will trigger consequences for somebody who thinks that my inbox should be their billboard.
malfist 3y ago
It's not my duty to click an unsubscribe button if I didn't subscribe in the first place. Companies like LinkedIn decide logging in gives them consent to start spamming you. Name a single company besides maybe amazon that if you place an order, they don't automatically put you into their marketing emails? It's all spam. By definition. I didn't ask for this, you are sending it to me. I don't care how easy you make it for me to stop you from sending it, I shouldn't have been getting it in the first place.
- lucb1e 3y ago
  > It's not my duty to click an unsubscribe button if I didn't subscribe in the first place. Then it's also not your duty to click the spam button?? Joking aside, that's not the kind of email I am talking about. Spam is spam and should be flagged as spam. If you get benign email that complies with all the anti-spam legislation but you just don't want it, then use unsubscribe. Using the spam button for things that are not spam muddles the data labeling and increases spam rates because the email service operators can't use it to tell what is actually spam and what is a frustrated (or perhaps simply ignorant) user.

by lucb1e 3y ago

theamk 3y ago

> is otherwise from a legitimate sender that complies with your local laws and will honor the unsubscription. those are the worst.. If I don't remember subscribing I always mark them as spam, even if there is a big prominent "unsubscribe" button. I'd still be doing that if the unsubsrube was built into UI. Why? My email got on some list somewhere and now I am getting an emails from various "trusted partners". Sure, there is an unsubscribe button and I would not be surprised if it works _for that sender_ but it has no point as there will be a new sender next week. Marking everything like this as spam is the only reasonble resort. Yes, this will not save my inbox, but at least it might help the next person.

lucb1e 3y ago
> > is otherwise from a legitimate sender that complies with your local laws and will honor the unsubscription. > those are the worst If it's legal in your area to send unsolicited commercial email, obviously that problem is not just going to go away because it gains them a competitive advantage to do so. > [when m]y email got on some list somewhere and now I am getting an emails from various "trusted partners". Yea that isn't legal where I live. For me, that would totally fall in the "smash that report-as-spam button" category, so I can very much understand your sentiment

sScTE9qEMCxEk34 3y ago

> (1) can unsubscribe from using the standard one-click unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email, and (2) have either explicitly signed up for or that is otherwise from a legitimate sender that complies with your local laws and will honor the unsubscription. That's not the bar of spam. Spam existed well before legislation to combat it. Spam is anything that you don't want to receive and weren't asked if you wanted to receive. That includes a wide variety of emails which are legal in most jurisdictions (like the ones GP mentioned).

Macha 3y ago

> have either explicitly signed up for or that is otherwise from a legitimate sender that complies with your local laws and will honor the unsubscripti 2 points: I'd agree that using spam for something a user has signed up for would be unfair, but only in the sense that they understood clearly they were signing up for emails, and not, for example, a confusing opt out tick tied to their purchase. You totally deserve the spam box for that latter one. Similarly, honouring local requirements for unsubscribe is not enough to get you out of spam reports if you didn't have a reason to email me to begin with. That you have a new product or newsletter or corporate announcement isn't good enough, but many marketing people believe it is. The fact that they can't self police is why I'm ok with email providers being strict about this. Really the one thing I miss since moving from Gmail is the knowledge that my use of the spam button hurt deliverability for senders of spammy emails more widely than just my own inbox.

lucb1e 3y ago
> but only in the sense that they understood clearly they were signing up for emails, and not, for example, a confusing opt out tick tied to their purchase Agree! (With the side note that this is already illegal in my area.) > Really the one thing I miss since moving from Gmail is the knowledge that my use of the spam button hurt deliverability for senders of spammy emails more widely than just my own inbox. Agree here, too: a unified list of spammy senders would be nice so we can work together and keep inboxes clean everywhere. But it should cut both ways. A sibling comment mentioned they hit the spam button per the definition of "when I do not want to receive the email". That could mean a personal email from their mom that they weren't wanting to read on a sunday, a legitimate invoice for an activity they booked, or literally anything else. Those people should either be banned from influencing a sender's spam score, or at least be ranked 10-100x lower. (Taking this idea one step too far, probably:) We could even tie those email addresses to other services: just ask youtube, discord, HN, reddit, etc. how often flagging/reporting is used as super-downvote button. If those people are registered as willfully misunderstanding the purpose of the button, that frees up a lot of resources and can increase the rate of correct spam detection significantly by having good labeling on data.

gwbas1c 3y ago

> or that is otherwise from a legitimate sender that complies with your local laws and will honor the unsubscription. I think your (luvb1e's) issue is that you don't understand the fundamental definition of SPAM: SPAM is anything that the sender (not the recipient) defines as SPAM. For example, a few years ago I bought something from L. L. Bean. In addition to my order confirmation, shipping confirmation, thank you email, surveys, ect, they also automatically put me on their daily email flyer. All of these emails were legal. Some of the emails were in the "grey area" between legit email and SPAM. The daily email flyer that I never signed up for: 100% SPAM. (And 100% legal.) Remember: It's my inbox, so I define what I consider SPAM to be SPAM. L. L. Bean can't twist the definition of SPAM so that their SPAM is really something else, and then blame me for hitting the SPAM button.

lucb1e 3y ago
> It's my inbox, so I define what I consider SPAM That's like saying: it's my back yard, I'll decide which laws apply here and who can deal drugs here It's nice to decide on one's own what legislation should look like, but that muddles the detection of real spam. You are signaling to your email provider that this email should never have been sent and that the sender is dishonestly sending garbage around. If the email was legal in your area, I would say the problem lies there, because no amount of spam button pressing will solve the problem if they continue to have a commercial advantage by sending unsolicited commercial email.
- gwbas1c 3y ago
  > real spam The daily flyer that I never signed up for is "real spam." It doesn't matter who sends it. You can't go and say, "oh, we're not spoofing and harvesting so we're not spam." That's just writing your own loophole so you can hijack my inbox and turn it into a billboard. And remember, I bear the burden of my inbox being full of email that I never subscribed to and will never read. Pushing the spam button has no consequence to me, but hopefully it will trigger consequences for somebody who thinks that my inbox should be their billboard.

malfist 3y ago

It's not my duty to click an unsubscribe button if I didn't subscribe in the first place. Companies like LinkedIn decide logging in gives them consent to start spamming you. Name a single company besides maybe amazon that if you place an order, they don't automatically put you into their marketing emails? It's all spam. By definition. I didn't ask for this, you are sending it to me. I don't care how easy you make it for me to stop you from sending it, I shouldn't have been getting it in the first place.

lucb1e 3y ago
> It's not my duty to click an unsubscribe button if I didn't subscribe in the first place. Then it's also not your duty to click the spam button?? Joking aside, that's not the kind of email I am talking about. Spam is spam and should be flagged as spam. If you get benign email that complies with all the anti-spam legislation but you just don't want it, then use unsubscribe. Using the spam button for things that are not spam muddles the data labeling and increases spam rates because the email service operators can't use it to tell what is actually spam and what is a frustrated (or perhaps simply ignorant) user.