4 ms·

If I'm certain I don't know the company, or I know the company but there is no unsubscribe button, it goes straight to Spam, no questions asked. A decade ago I

by sph 3y ago

If I'm certain I don't know the company, or I know the company but there is no unsubscribe button, it goes straight to Spam, no questions asked. A decade ago I went to my country's embassy to renew my passport, and they now use my email to subscribe me to the newsletters of any new political party. All unsubscribe links just 404s. Shameful behaviour. Anything I receive from any of their political candidates goes straight to spam now. The hope is that I am training the spam filter so it marks those as spam for all other users as well. It's simple really: have clearly visible, working unsubscribe link in the body of the email that doesn't require jumping through hoops, and be from a company I know and use. Otherwise the spam filter learns about it.

figassis 3y ago
There's worse. An unsubscribe link that asks you to submit your email. Few things anger me more, because they went through the trouble of pretending to comply, and a decision was made to make my day more difficult.
- kijin 3y ago
  That exists for a reason, and it's not nefarious at all. Lot of people, especially of the older generation, forward all sorts of emails to their friends and family every day. If one person who received a forwarded email doesn't like it and clicks the unsubscribe link, the original recipient (who clearly likes the email enough to forward it around) gets unsubscribed. That's a bug. If you don't like the unfunny newsletter your uncle keeps forwarding you, that's a problem between you and your uncle, not between your uncle and his newsletter! The email submission form exists to ensure that the person unsubscribing is the person who is actually on the mailing list. It will not prevent an annoyed nephew from deliberately unsubscribing the original recipient, but it will prevent most cases of mistake by third parties. Similarly, many unsubscribe links require two clicks instead of one, because some email services used to automatically check out every link they found in the body of an email. A one-click link would unsubscribe everyone before they even saw the email. Nowadays we have better protocols and better email scanners, but old industry habits die hard.
  - jack1243star 3y ago
    There is no "mistake" in wanting to unsubscribe from a mail list. This is just dark pattern to increase friction, whatever scenario they try to come up to justify.
    - mlyle 3y ago
      I share your frustration, but there is no evidence that you read the comment you're replying to. That comment explains that there's a scenario where people can be accidentally unsubscribed in the presence of mail forwarding, and the requirement to enter an email address can patch over this.
      - eru 3y ago
        Well, you could still pre-fill that field.
      - jack1243star 3y ago
        Upon re-reading the comment, I understand the scenario now. Thanks for clarifying. Thankfully I don't have people forwarding emails to me outside of work...
  - robocat 3y ago
    I think you are mostly wrong. OP is complaining they sometimes have to enter their email address - that is absolutely unnecessary make-work. The page can prompt the email address, and have a simple unsubscribe button. Not perfect, but okay. Even better, one-click unsubscribe features (e.g. Gmail's App) are presumably set up to work for the current recipient (not the original sender) so the problem is resolved for anyone using an email client with inbuilt unsubscribe. The forwarding problem is only for html link unsubscribe. Personally I hate trying to play find-the-ubsubscribe-link, so I use the email client feature where possible (which also helps Gmail rate/flag spam). Mostly I haven't had problems with repeat spammers, except a republican politician (I'm not in the USA so doubly annoying).
    - 3y ago
- tppiotrowski 3y ago
  Also needing to log in before you can unsubscribe.
  - incompatible 3y ago
    Especially if your account is no longer accessible; a problem I had with Uber after changing my phone number. Bombarded with "Uber Eats" spam and no way to unsubscribe without going through some kind of ridiculous process to reactivate the account.
    - kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
      I have that problem with a former utility company that keeps sending updates about the business that I've unsubscribed from multiple times. The one that irks me the most is TP-Link Kasa who has a marketing opt-out in the account creation flow and they still send repetitive spam without honoring the unsubscribe link.
  - mbesto 3y ago
    IIRC, CAN-SPAM explicitly says the unsubscribe button needs to be available without logging in. So this would be a violation.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - RF_Savage 3y ago
      So, who do you contact about that violation?
      - autoexec 3y ago
        Here you go: https://www.justice.gov/action-center/report-spam https://www.justice.gov/action-center/report-spam You can probably guess how effective that is. In practice, unless you can get the FTC or a state attorney general to sue an actual company for you, nothing will ever come of it.
- nirvdrum 3y ago
  Hulu did (does?) this and the form rejected my email address as invalid because the domain portion had three parts to it. Of course, they were able to continue sending me emails so some system knew it was valid. It was likely a bad assumption an engineer made somewhere, but all the more reason to use unsubscribe links that are already tied to the email address.

by sph 3y ago

figassis 3y ago

There's worse. An unsubscribe link that asks you to submit your email. Few things anger me more, because they went through the trouble of pretending to comply, and a decision was made to make my day more difficult.

kijin 3y ago
That exists for a reason, and it's not nefarious at all. Lot of people, especially of the older generation, forward all sorts of emails to their friends and family every day. If one person who received a forwarded email doesn't like it and clicks the unsubscribe link, the original recipient (who clearly likes the email enough to forward it around) gets unsubscribed. That's a bug. If you don't like the unfunny newsletter your uncle keeps forwarding you, that's a problem between you and your uncle, not between your uncle and his newsletter! The email submission form exists to ensure that the person unsubscribing is the person who is actually on the mailing list. It will not prevent an annoyed nephew from deliberately unsubscribing the original recipient, but it will prevent most cases of mistake by third parties. Similarly, many unsubscribe links require two clicks instead of one, because some email services used to automatically check out every link they found in the body of an email. A one-click link would unsubscribe everyone before they even saw the email. Nowadays we have better protocols and better email scanners, but old industry habits die hard.
- jack1243star 3y ago
  There is no "mistake" in wanting to unsubscribe from a mail list. This is just dark pattern to increase friction, whatever scenario they try to come up to justify.
  - mlyle 3y ago
    I share your frustration, but there is no evidence that you read the comment you're replying to. That comment explains that there's a scenario where people can be accidentally unsubscribed in the presence of mail forwarding, and the requirement to enter an email address can patch over this.
    - eru 3y ago
      Well, you could still pre-fill that field.
    - jack1243star 3y ago
      Upon re-reading the comment, I understand the scenario now. Thanks for clarifying. Thankfully I don't have people forwarding emails to me outside of work...
- robocat 3y ago
  I think you are mostly wrong. OP is complaining they sometimes have to enter their email address - that is absolutely unnecessary make-work. The page can prompt the email address, and have a simple unsubscribe button. Not perfect, but okay. Even better, one-click unsubscribe features (e.g. Gmail's App) are presumably set up to work for the current recipient (not the original sender) so the problem is resolved for anyone using an email client with inbuilt unsubscribe. The forwarding problem is only for html link unsubscribe. Personally I hate trying to play find-the-ubsubscribe-link, so I use the email client feature where possible (which also helps Gmail rate/flag spam). Mostly I haven't had problems with repeat spammers, except a republican politician (I'm not in the USA so doubly annoying).
  - 3y ago
tppiotrowski 3y ago
Also needing to log in before you can unsubscribe.
- incompatible 3y ago
  Especially if your account is no longer accessible; a problem I had with Uber after changing my phone number. Bombarded with "Uber Eats" spam and no way to unsubscribe without going through some kind of ridiculous process to reactivate the account.
  - kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
    I have that problem with a former utility company that keeps sending updates about the business that I've unsubscribed from multiple times. The one that irks me the most is TP-Link Kasa who has a marketing opt-out in the account creation flow and they still send repetitive spam without honoring the unsubscribe link.
- mbesto 3y ago
  IIRC, CAN-SPAM explicitly says the unsubscribe button needs to be available without logging in. So this would be a violation.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - RF_Savage 3y ago
    So, who do you contact about that violation?
    - autoexec 3y ago
      Here you go: https://www.justice.gov/action-center/report-spam https://www.justice.gov/action-center/report-spam You can probably guess how effective that is. In practice, unless you can get the FTC or a state attorney general to sue an actual company for you, nothing will ever come of it.
nirvdrum 3y ago
Hulu did (does?) this and the form rejected my email address as invalid because the domain portion had three parts to it. Of course, they were able to continue sending me emails so some system knew it was valid. It was likely a bad assumption an engineer made somewhere, but all the more reason to use unsubscribe links that are already tied to the email address.