8 ms·

I'm going to keep opting out

124 points by cdme 3y ago

etaioinshrdlu 3y ago
Companies do marketing because these techniques work, not because they enjoy being evil. If you work in tech, part of your income is likely dependent on marketing, whether you think about it or not.
- rwmj 3y ago
  They work only because they externalise the costs. If companies had to pay the full cost of all the interruption and system degradation their spam causes, then it's unlikely it would be viable.
- UncleEntity 3y ago
  It's a rare company that does marketing well though. Just off the top of my head I can only think of one company that I allow to send me marketing e-mails -- I bought a ukulele over 20 years ago and they send out a couple 'newsletters' a year which IMHO is acceptable, doubly so since I haven't picked up a ukulele in over a decade. Contrast that with my last online order that started sending out at least two a day as soon as they got their dirty paws on my e-mail address and I had to unsubscribe even though I was/am interested in the 'new releases' they were spamming my inbox with.
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  > not because they enjoy being evil. There's a line from Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" that floors me every time. His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; A devil sick of sin! Wow. As you say. They don't enjoy being evil. But they are. They know it too, and it sickens them as much as all of us.
- cdme 3y ago
  They _can_ engage in the behavior and the tactics, we can't control that — we can opt out at each turn and I'd argue we should given how invasive it's become.
- RickS 3y ago
  > Companies do marketing because these techniques work, not because they enjoy being evil These techniques work... to make them money... which is the part they enjoy. The distinction between evil for money and evil for evil's sake is mostly academic. But your main point is correct: for most of us here, the screen we view, the ISP subscription, and sure as hell this website, were all paid for in part – perhaps in _large_ part — by fleecing at scale the technically unsophisticated, who lack the faculties to evade the machines we build for companies whose hunger will persist even after it has swallowed every coin from every pocket from every destitute man on earth.
avg_dev 3y ago
Really agree with this post. I wish gmail had a filter for mails sent by a human, but I suspect it would be antithetical to their aims.
- ianmcgowan 3y ago
  I have a filter to delete all emails containing the word unsubscribe or donate. May have deleted a few important emails, but I wouldnt say I've missed it, Bob..
7thaccount 3y ago
We live in an advertising hellscape now. The biggest crock of crap is being forced to watch an advertisement at the freaking gas station as I pump my gas. I'll never voluntarily use those pumps ever again.
- ianmcgowan 3y ago
  2nd button from the top on the right hand side. For now...
  - acidburnNSA 3y ago
    and if it doesn't work, just mash each button. Seems like at least one of them mutes it.
    - ssl-3 3y ago
      Unless it doesn't. There is a fairly large gas station near me that doesn't have a silence button. It's a big-name, corpo-owned station (Speedway, now owned by 7-11). No amount of button-mashing will cause it to cease. It belts out loud advertising noise 24/7, from both sides of each pump (whether in-use or not). And because they're all apparently IP-connected, and no real attempt was made at synchronizing them, they're all free-running and slightly out-of-sync with eachother. The result is an overwhelming cacophony that resembles a PA system that sounds like it was designed by an inebriated squirrel, and with system-tuning performed by a sadist with a grudge against humanity. Previously (for decades), I went there frequently because it was convenient. Today, they don't get any more of my money regardless of convenience.
- dawnerd 3y ago
  Only a matter of time until auto companies put ads in EVs while they charge too.
- hoherd 3y ago
  That one is especially evil because you can't walk away far enough to be out of range of the ridiculously loud speaker. This is a sure-fire way to tell me "never come back to our gas station."
lukevp 3y ago
I could’ve written this. My goal of 2024 is to remove all emails, alerts, notifications that don’t truly deserve my attention. And as I’ve started doing that, it feels like a never-ending hole. What can we do about this? With e-mail, we can create temp inboxes and throw them away. What about phone? Is there an IPV6 for phone where we could have billions of throwaway numbers and use them as we see fit? Introduce a new country code that has 32 digit phone numbers and if you don’t accept those numbers, you don’t get our business? At this point all of my personal, business emails, and phone numbers have been bought and sold a million times, and there’s no recourse or penalty for people spamming them. What can we do about this? It’s oppressive.
- rplnt 3y ago
  For phones it's even easier than email as you have to accept a call. Simply don't pick up unknown numbers/unexpected calls.
  - Repulsion9513 3y ago
    The incoming call alone is more of a disruption than an email, honestly.
    - mrandish 3y ago
      Agreed. I finally just went with the nuclear option and blocked all calls that aren't already in my phone book. This has resulted in some missed connections and other inconvenience but I've decided the benefits are worth the downsides. More and more people I know are doing the same. Some companies, like my dentist's office, are finally adapting and providing ways for their employees to text if there's no answer. I wish the FCC/phone cos would add some kind of 'return code' to callers who are blocked by this setting which indicates "This number only accepts calls from numbers in its phone book."
  - shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
    I permanently mute my iPhone and then I added "Emergency Bypass On" ringtones on the contacts that I care about so I hear when they call no-matter-what. Otherwise, I call back when I am available.
oven9342 3y ago
I’m browsing with JavaScript disabled. Cookie banners and subscription banners have all disappeared. When I need JS, I open the website on Firefox Reddit is barely usable, but HN works just fine. I wish more websites tuned for efficiency and simplicity instead of bloat and surveillance capitalism
- bee_rider 3y ago
  HN and old reddit are pretty similar, but HN does seems slightly more useable without JavaScript. I think it is just the default level of folding? I usually use HN with JavaScript enables—I think it is required for comments—but trying it now without it, it seems like everything is defaulting to non-folded, which is good.
wepple 3y ago
I take it one more step: if you step across any of my personal lines, I will stop doing business with you where feasible. For example: - I unsubscribe from your mailing list. But you have another, slightly different one, so I must unsubscribe from each - >1 click to unsubscribe - physically mail me more than about 4 times a year: your product probably sucks - make it difficult to cancel my account or subscription - and many more At this point I may end up living in the woods with no internet, but that sounds delightful!
blfr 3y ago
> It's insisting that someone engage with you when they would do so if they cared to. No, they wouldn't. Most people are not like us. It always baffled me why the ecommerce stores would so easily nuke your entire purchase history, when they changed some software. I would routinely look up what I purchased before to purchase it again, or a version of it, even years later. But most people don't. So it's easier to nuke the old system, and then market again. The lost revenue from those who would reengage when they needed to is minuscule and irrelevant. This mass of non-discriminating consumers is a larger problem of modern capitalism. There is little incentive to make truly excellent products, and the market for them is usually a small niche. Most people don't care, even if they care, they can't tell the difference, and won't put in the effort.
- jondwillis 3y ago
  Dingdingding. I moved in with my girlfriend, and I am wanting for us to be very intentional with the furniture/house purchases we make, buying used where possible. So, I tell her to use Facebook Marketplace (RIP CL for the normies). A day later, she’s excited to go pick up a mirror from someone on there, and without looking at the posting, I go accompany her to pick it up from this stranger. When we get there, it’s someone selling cheap chinese mirrors from out of a shipping container (while dodging taxes and other regulations I am sure!) She loves the mirror and wants it anyway. Super flimsy, overpriced, bad materials, ecologically damaging, publicly damaging (no taxes!) This is not what I had in mind when I wanted her to buy high quality pre-owned furniture, but this kind of cheap scheme is winning out over and over again.
karlshea 3y ago
I always uncheck the “email me news” checkbox on Stripe checkout screens and without fail end up on their newsletter within a day. It’s gotten to the point I have to attribute it to malice and not incompetence on the part of these awful marketing people. If I tell you I don’t want to be contacted and you do it anyways it should come with business-destroying fines or jail time.
- cratermoon 3y ago
  Yes, they want friction. They need to make it hard to opt out so they can exploit human's natural laziness and impatience.
bee_rider 3y ago
I find I just sign up for a lot fewer services than I would otherwise, these days. Engaging with a lot of the internet is just exhausting, when you have to constantly be on guard. I’m not sure if it is a local-maximum or some sort of tragedy of the commons thing, or maybe it actually just legitimately works well for lots of companies and I’m a just the weird one, but it seems odd that every interaction online is a game of “what information can I reveal before I get fucked over,” and the answer is usually: very little.
franky47 3y ago
What I want is a Content-Security-Policy approach to my phone calls: block everything by default, and only allow known contacts through. At this point I'm getting 2-3 spam calls a day, so I'm just not picking up. The friction comes with the occasional useful contact from a third party that I might not have the number from (eg: contractor using a different mobile number than their main office line).
- Repulsion9513 3y ago
  You can definitely do that on Android and can probably do that on iPhone.
- jondwillis 3y ago
  Both Android and iOS support this. Disabling and re-enabling for when you’re expecting a call that is likely to be blocked/marked as spam is a pain though.
cratermoon 3y ago
"the cookie banners and compliance cottage industry that grew out of it are a blight on the web" We got "opt out" because the major tech players wanted it. It would have been just as easy, if not easier, to implement "opt in". The cookie banners are there because adtech people wanted friction for opting out, knowing they could use dark patterns and human nature to get most people to just click "OK" and move on to what they were looking for.
- p_l 3y ago
  Remember: - Every "cookie banner" that does not have a single big "reject all" button that does what it says on the tin fast is not Compliant - Every time a cookie consent form has "optional" "legitimate interest" or "3rd party legitimate interest" - that's not Compliant. Send every of those to GDPR enforcers. It might take time, but with enought complaints we can get balls rolling... and hopefully heads.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
legrande 3y ago
I always click the unsubscribe button at the footer of e-mails if I don't want to be micro-harassed daily in my Inbox. I never want to read newsletters, and there's no anomalous exception to that. We are all living on borrowed time here on earth and I don't want to spend significant portions of it reading newsletters and promotional material. It's just a gimmicky growth hack your service/product uses to gain leads. And most of the e-mail I receive is bacn[0] instead of spam. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-21830739 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-21830739
- sureglymop 3y ago
  The only one I seriously read is Money Stuff by Matt Levine. Wish it was an RSS feed instead of a newsletter though.
  - leoapagano 3y ago
    kill-the-newsletter.com is a godsend for stuff like this.
butz 3y ago
I usually assume that interacting with spam in any way will only mark my email address as active in their database. It is the worst when legit business is sending reminders about expiring service even after I deleted my account. That tells much about their personal data handling. What I wish for, is some sort of way to legally be eligible for small amount of money for each spam or GDPR breaking email message. Want to send unsolicited email - pay up.
drpossum 3y ago
For particular classes of email (unwelcome recruiters, people soliciting me directly that I know I didn't give permission to, stuff without an obvious "unsubscribe" or unsubscribe that doesn't work) I go to the trouble of reporting to their email providers which I find via the link below. I do get responses from the other end often enough and if enough complaints get in they'll start getting blacklisted. https://acidtool.com/ https://acidtool.com/
- Repulsion9513 3y ago
  Sadly, at worst they'll get the boot from that provider and move to another provider who they'll be able to use for years more. Even that is difficult as in most cases providers will accept a "we removed this user" or "no, we never email anyone who hasn't opted in, promise" and come back and tell you they've dealt with it. The only way to actually get rid of it is to mark it as spam and hope enough other people do too that your provider starts treating it as spam for everyone.
Repulsion9513 3y ago
I seriously don't understand who actually falls for this stuff. Like, oh, this company I bought something from a year ago sent me an email, let me go buy something else from them. Oh, this company I've never heard of sent me an email, definitely let me do buy something from them. ??? Oh, here's a good one: Capital One just sent me a newsletter entitled "Can you spot a scam?". First, yes I can, and second, it's a clear advertisement for them and their "partnership with KHAN ACADEMY" (caps theirs). Guess where the unsubscribe link is? Oh wait, there isn't one. "This email was sent to capitalone@... and contains information directly related to your account with us, other services to which you have subscribed, and/or any application you may have submitted."
- medstrom 3y ago
  Only 1/100 need to click. Think of 100 people you went to school with. Would one of them click?
  - Repulsion9513 3y ago
    Obviously they would, I just don't understand why.
- arp242 3y ago
  The essential problem with spam is that it's so cheap to send it out that it might as well be free. This applies to both "I am a representative of the UN and want to send you $14 million"-type of "scam spam" as well as "you bought something years ago and now we'll spam you" type of "corporate spam". So basically: it doesn't hurt to try.
  - Repulsion9513 3y ago
    Is it really that cheap? The company I work for has <100 employees yet we pay a FTE whose primary job is writing our weekly "newsletter"...
jondwillis 3y ago
Paper Karma (there are other similar tools) has been somewhat successful for fighting physical mailers. I just moved in with my girlfriend after having used it extensively at my last residence, and because of this, she is getting tons of junk mail and I am getting almost none.
fxtentacle 3y ago
"A cease and desist letter can be sent to the person who is harassing you to demand that they immediately stop their behavior, which may include unwanted communications, stalking, or threats." and "Harassment is generally defined as unwanted, unwelcome, and uninvited behavior which annoys, threatens, intimidates" I've always wondered if that would apply to newsletters who ignore/refuse my opt-out request. "unwanted communications" and "uninvited behavior which annoys" is pretty much how I feel when companies keep sending me their newsletter after I told them to stop.
- adingus 3y ago
  I have been wondering this myself. I am getting repeated email from Firestone and their unsubscribe webpage is completely broken. The 'submit' button doesn't work and the check boxes are actually just text inputs.
RickS 3y ago
It is only a tiny fraction of the population that are able to "opt out" at the level described here: seeking unsubscribe services that aren't scams, modifying the DOM, etc. If those are the only methods that even partially work, then the majority have no recourse, no choice but to be bombarded, to be drained, to have their attention taken from them without their consent and pierced until nothing remains. I can only imagine the rage and betrayal I would feel if I felt this being perpetrated against me, with no recourse but to disconnect. I hope that some day the people who don't know what a DOM is will muster the courage to eat us at the same scale we ate them, for a value of "eat" that cares as much for our input as we cared for theirs. I left the tech industry, but I cannot leave behind the fear and guilt that I have participated in something horrifically ugly.
patatino 3y ago
I unsubscribe from everything, keep a zero inbox. Every mail in there needs attention. Currently I have 3 mails in my inbox. Works like a charm.
SebFender 3y ago
Brave with a few extensions is pretty solid on desktop and when it comes to additional controls and mobile - nothing beats a DNS service.

124 points by cdme 3y ago

Companies do marketing because these techniques work, not because they enjoy being evil. If you work in tech, part of your income is likely dependent on marketing, whether you think about it or not.

rwmj 3y ago
They work only because they externalise the costs. If companies had to pay the full cost of all the interruption and system degradation their spam causes, then it's unlikely it would be viable.
UncleEntity 3y ago
It's a rare company that does marketing well though. Just off the top of my head I can only think of one company that I allow to send me marketing e-mails -- I bought a ukulele over 20 years ago and they send out a couple 'newsletters' a year which IMHO is acceptable, doubly so since I haven't picked up a ukulele in over a decade. Contrast that with my last online order that started sending out at least two a day as soon as they got their dirty paws on my e-mail address and I had to unsubscribe even though I was/am interested in the 'new releases' they were spamming my inbox with.
nonrandomstring 3y ago
> not because they enjoy being evil. There's a line from Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" that floors me every time. His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; A devil sick of sin! Wow. As you say. They don't enjoy being evil. But they are. They know it too, and it sickens them as much as all of us.
cdme 3y ago
They _can_ engage in the behavior and the tactics, we can't control that — we can opt out at each turn and I'd argue we should given how invasive it's become.
RickS 3y ago
> Companies do marketing because these techniques work, not because they enjoy being evil These techniques work... to make them money... which is the part they enjoy. The distinction between evil for money and evil for evil's sake is mostly academic. But your main point is correct: for most of us here, the screen we view, the ISP subscription, and sure as hell this website, were all paid for in part – perhaps in _large_ part — by fleecing at scale the technically unsophisticated, who lack the faculties to evade the machines we build for companies whose hunger will persist even after it has swallowed every coin from every pocket from every destitute man on earth.

avg_dev 3y ago

Really agree with this post. I wish gmail had a filter for mails sent by a human, but I suspect it would be antithetical to their aims.

ianmcgowan 3y ago
I have a filter to delete all emails containing the word unsubscribe or donate. May have deleted a few important emails, but I wouldnt say I've missed it, Bob..

7thaccount 3y ago

We live in an advertising hellscape now. The biggest crock of crap is being forced to watch an advertisement at the freaking gas station as I pump my gas. I'll never voluntarily use those pumps ever again.

ianmcgowan 3y ago
2nd button from the top on the right hand side. For now...
- acidburnNSA 3y ago
  and if it doesn't work, just mash each button. Seems like at least one of them mutes it.
  - ssl-3 3y ago
    Unless it doesn't. There is a fairly large gas station near me that doesn't have a silence button. It's a big-name, corpo-owned station (Speedway, now owned by 7-11). No amount of button-mashing will cause it to cease. It belts out loud advertising noise 24/7, from both sides of each pump (whether in-use or not). And because they're all apparently IP-connected, and no real attempt was made at synchronizing them, they're all free-running and slightly out-of-sync with eachother. The result is an overwhelming cacophony that resembles a PA system that sounds like it was designed by an inebriated squirrel, and with system-tuning performed by a sadist with a grudge against humanity. Previously (for decades), I went there frequently because it was convenient. Today, they don't get any more of my money regardless of convenience.
dawnerd 3y ago
Only a matter of time until auto companies put ads in EVs while they charge too.
hoherd 3y ago
That one is especially evil because you can't walk away far enough to be out of range of the ridiculously loud speaker. This is a sure-fire way to tell me "never come back to our gas station."

lukevp 3y ago

I could’ve written this. My goal of 2024 is to remove all emails, alerts, notifications that don’t truly deserve my attention. And as I’ve started doing that, it feels like a never-ending hole. What can we do about this? With e-mail, we can create temp inboxes and throw them away. What about phone? Is there an IPV6 for phone where we could have billions of throwaway numbers and use them as we see fit? Introduce a new country code that has 32 digit phone numbers and if you don’t accept those numbers, you don’t get our business? At this point all of my personal, business emails, and phone numbers have been bought and sold a million times, and there’s no recourse or penalty for people spamming them. What can we do about this? It’s oppressive.

rplnt 3y ago
For phones it's even easier than email as you have to accept a call. Simply don't pick up unknown numbers/unexpected calls.
- Repulsion9513 3y ago
  The incoming call alone is more of a disruption than an email, honestly.
  - mrandish 3y ago
    Agreed. I finally just went with the nuclear option and blocked all calls that aren't already in my phone book. This has resulted in some missed connections and other inconvenience but I've decided the benefits are worth the downsides. More and more people I know are doing the same. Some companies, like my dentist's office, are finally adapting and providing ways for their employees to text if there's no answer. I wish the FCC/phone cos would add some kind of 'return code' to callers who are blocked by this setting which indicates "This number only accepts calls from numbers in its phone book."
- shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
  I permanently mute my iPhone and then I added "Emergency Bypass On" ringtones on the contacts that I care about so I hear when they call no-matter-what. Otherwise, I call back when I am available.

oven9342 3y ago

I’m browsing with JavaScript disabled. Cookie banners and subscription banners have all disappeared. When I need JS, I open the website on Firefox Reddit is barely usable, but HN works just fine. I wish more websites tuned for efficiency and simplicity instead of bloat and surveillance capitalism

bee_rider 3y ago
HN and old reddit are pretty similar, but HN does seems slightly more useable without JavaScript. I think it is just the default level of folding? I usually use HN with JavaScript enables—I think it is required for comments—but trying it now without it, it seems like everything is defaulting to non-folded, which is good.

wepple 3y ago

I take it one more step: if you step across any of my personal lines, I will stop doing business with you where feasible. For example: - I unsubscribe from your mailing list. But you have another, slightly different one, so I must unsubscribe from each - >1 click to unsubscribe - physically mail me more than about 4 times a year: your product probably sucks - make it difficult to cancel my account or subscription - and many more At this point I may end up living in the woods with no internet, but that sounds delightful!

blfr 3y ago

> It's insisting that someone engage with you when they would do so if they cared to. No, they wouldn't. Most people are not like us. It always baffled me why the ecommerce stores would so easily nuke your entire purchase history, when they changed some software. I would routinely look up what I purchased before to purchase it again, or a version of it, even years later. But most people don't. So it's easier to nuke the old system, and then market again. The lost revenue from those who would reengage when they needed to is minuscule and irrelevant. This mass of non-discriminating consumers is a larger problem of modern capitalism. There is little incentive to make truly excellent products, and the market for them is usually a small niche. Most people don't care, even if they care, they can't tell the difference, and won't put in the effort.

jondwillis 3y ago
Dingdingding. I moved in with my girlfriend, and I am wanting for us to be very intentional with the furniture/house purchases we make, buying used where possible. So, I tell her to use Facebook Marketplace (RIP CL for the normies). A day later, she’s excited to go pick up a mirror from someone on there, and without looking at the posting, I go accompany her to pick it up from this stranger. When we get there, it’s someone selling cheap chinese mirrors from out of a shipping container (while dodging taxes and other regulations I am sure!) She loves the mirror and wants it anyway. Super flimsy, overpriced, bad materials, ecologically damaging, publicly damaging (no taxes!) This is not what I had in mind when I wanted her to buy high quality pre-owned furniture, but this kind of cheap scheme is winning out over and over again.

karlshea 3y ago

I always uncheck the “email me news” checkbox on Stripe checkout screens and without fail end up on their newsletter within a day. It’s gotten to the point I have to attribute it to malice and not incompetence on the part of these awful marketing people. If I tell you I don’t want to be contacted and you do it anyways it should come with business-destroying fines or jail time.

cratermoon 3y ago
Yes, they want friction. They need to make it hard to opt out so they can exploit human's natural laziness and impatience.

bee_rider 3y ago

I find I just sign up for a lot fewer services than I would otherwise, these days. Engaging with a lot of the internet is just exhausting, when you have to constantly be on guard. I’m not sure if it is a local-maximum or some sort of tragedy of the commons thing, or maybe it actually just legitimately works well for lots of companies and I’m a just the weird one, but it seems odd that every interaction online is a game of “what information can I reveal before I get fucked over,” and the answer is usually: very little.

franky47 3y ago

What I want is a Content-Security-Policy approach to my phone calls: block everything by default, and only allow known contacts through. At this point I'm getting 2-3 spam calls a day, so I'm just not picking up. The friction comes with the occasional useful contact from a third party that I might not have the number from (eg: contractor using a different mobile number than their main office line).

Repulsion9513 3y ago
You can definitely do that on Android and can probably do that on iPhone.
jondwillis 3y ago
Both Android and iOS support this. Disabling and re-enabling for when you’re expecting a call that is likely to be blocked/marked as spam is a pain though.

cratermoon 3y ago

"the cookie banners and compliance cottage industry that grew out of it are a blight on the web" We got "opt out" because the major tech players wanted it. It would have been just as easy, if not easier, to implement "opt in". The cookie banners are there because adtech people wanted friction for opting out, knowing they could use dark patterns and human nature to get most people to just click "OK" and move on to what they were looking for.

p_l 3y ago
Remember: - Every "cookie banner" that does not have a single big "reject all" button that does what it says on the tin fast is not Compliant - Every time a cookie consent form has "optional" "legitimate interest" or "3rd party legitimate interest" - that's not Compliant. Send every of those to GDPR enforcers. It might take time, but with enought complaints we can get balls rolling... and hopefully heads.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

legrande 3y ago

I always click the unsubscribe button at the footer of e-mails if I don't want to be micro-harassed daily in my Inbox. I never want to read newsletters, and there's no anomalous exception to that. We are all living on borrowed time here on earth and I don't want to spend significant portions of it reading newsletters and promotional material. It's just a gimmicky growth hack your service/product uses to gain leads. And most of the e-mail I receive is bacn[0] instead of spam. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-21830739 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-21830739

sureglymop 3y ago
The only one I seriously read is Money Stuff by Matt Levine. Wish it was an RSS feed instead of a newsletter though.
- leoapagano 3y ago
  kill-the-newsletter.com is a godsend for stuff like this.

butz 3y ago

I usually assume that interacting with spam in any way will only mark my email address as active in their database. It is the worst when legit business is sending reminders about expiring service even after I deleted my account. That tells much about their personal data handling. What I wish for, is some sort of way to legally be eligible for small amount of money for each spam or GDPR breaking email message. Want to send unsolicited email - pay up.

drpossum 3y ago

For particular classes of email (unwelcome recruiters, people soliciting me directly that I know I didn't give permission to, stuff without an obvious "unsubscribe" or unsubscribe that doesn't work) I go to the trouble of reporting to their email providers which I find via the link below. I do get responses from the other end often enough and if enough complaints get in they'll start getting blacklisted. https://acidtool.com/ https://acidtool.com/

Repulsion9513 3y ago
Sadly, at worst they'll get the boot from that provider and move to another provider who they'll be able to use for years more. Even that is difficult as in most cases providers will accept a "we removed this user" or "no, we never email anyone who hasn't opted in, promise" and come back and tell you they've dealt with it. The only way to actually get rid of it is to mark it as spam and hope enough other people do too that your provider starts treating it as spam for everyone.

Repulsion9513 3y ago

I seriously don't understand who actually falls for this stuff. Like, oh, this company I bought something from a year ago sent me an email, let me go buy something else from them. Oh, this company I've never heard of sent me an email, definitely let me do buy something from them. ??? Oh, here's a good one: Capital One just sent me a newsletter entitled "Can you spot a scam?". First, yes I can, and second, it's a clear advertisement for them and their "partnership with KHAN ACADEMY" (caps theirs). Guess where the unsubscribe link is? Oh wait, there isn't one. "This email was sent to capitalone@... and contains information directly related to your account with us, other services to which you have subscribed, and/or any application you may have submitted."

medstrom 3y ago
Only 1/100 need to click. Think of 100 people you went to school with. Would one of them click?
- Repulsion9513 3y ago
  Obviously they would, I just don't understand why.
arp242 3y ago
The essential problem with spam is that it's so cheap to send it out that it might as well be free. This applies to both "I am a representative of the UN and want to send you $14 million"-type of "scam spam" as well as "you bought something years ago and now we'll spam you" type of "corporate spam". So basically: it doesn't hurt to try.
- Repulsion9513 3y ago
  Is it really that cheap? The company I work for has <100 employees yet we pay a FTE whose primary job is writing our weekly "newsletter"...

jondwillis 3y ago

Paper Karma (there are other similar tools) has been somewhat successful for fighting physical mailers. I just moved in with my girlfriend after having used it extensively at my last residence, and because of this, she is getting tons of junk mail and I am getting almost none.

fxtentacle 3y ago

"A cease and desist letter can be sent to the person who is harassing you to demand that they immediately stop their behavior, which may include unwanted communications, stalking, or threats." and "Harassment is generally defined as unwanted, unwelcome, and uninvited behavior which annoys, threatens, intimidates" I've always wondered if that would apply to newsletters who ignore/refuse my opt-out request. "unwanted communications" and "uninvited behavior which annoys" is pretty much how I feel when companies keep sending me their newsletter after I told them to stop.

adingus 3y ago
I have been wondering this myself. I am getting repeated email from Firestone and their unsubscribe webpage is completely broken. The 'submit' button doesn't work and the check boxes are actually just text inputs.

RickS 3y ago

It is only a tiny fraction of the population that are able to "opt out" at the level described here: seeking unsubscribe services that aren't scams, modifying the DOM, etc. If those are the only methods that even partially work, then the majority have no recourse, no choice but to be bombarded, to be drained, to have their attention taken from them without their consent and pierced until nothing remains. I can only imagine the rage and betrayal I would feel if I felt this being perpetrated against me, with no recourse but to disconnect. I hope that some day the people who don't know what a DOM is will muster the courage to eat us at the same scale we ate them, for a value of "eat" that cares as much for our input as we cared for theirs. I left the tech industry, but I cannot leave behind the fear and guilt that I have participated in something horrifically ugly.

patatino 3y ago

I unsubscribe from everything, keep a zero inbox. Every mail in there needs attention. Currently I have 3 mails in my inbox. Works like a charm.

SebFender 3y ago

Brave with a few extensions is pretty solid on desktop and when it comes to additional controls and mobile - nothing beats a DNS service.