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Unsubscribe links are a fantastic regulation, but there is a workaround. I must have received at least a dozen emails from Brown after graduating despite unsubs

Unsubscribe links are a fantastic regulation, but there is a workaround. I must have received at least a dozen emails from Brown after graduating despite unsubscribing to every email they sent. The trouble is they're endlessly creative about the lists they put you on. I'd get one email from "Alumni Connections" and then another from "Faculty Spotlight" and then another from "Global Outreach" and then another from "Event Invitations, 2023 series". I'm making those names up because I forget exactly what they were called, but you get the idea. I hope this was in violation of the regulation: surely you can't invent a new mailing list that didn't used to exist, add me to it, and require me to unsubscribe from it individually. They finally stopped after I sent them an angry email.

ksd482 2y ago
What I have noticed companies do is resume emails after a year or so. They probably think people would forget about unsubscribing them after a year, and for the most part they are right. If I catch any of these email lists not respecting my unsubscribing, I immediately mark them as "spam". Gmail then doesn't send them to my inbox anymore. I don't think just one person marking them as spam hurts them, but at least I feel gratified and my ego is satisfied.
- inetknght 2y ago
  > I immediately mark them as "spam". Ahh yes, the feel-good response that Google gives you without doing anything substantial to prevent spam from reaching you in the future.
  - armada651 2y ago
    If you were using self-hosted e-mail everywhere, then it would be quite obvious that large providers like Google do massively benefit from those user reports when filtering spam.
  - kemitche 2y ago
    What makes you say that? In my experience, the spam button works fantastically. There is a gym of some kind that has me on their mailing list, refuses to honor unsubscribe, and sends me probably 2-6 emails a month. They've been doing this for years, but Google correctly gets every single one into spam because I marked one (several?) as spam years ago. Most, if not all, political junk email also ends up in my spam folder after judicious use of the spam button a few years ago.
    - inetknght 2y ago
      > They've been doing this for years, but Google correctly gets every single one into spam because I marked one (several?) as spam years ago. I've had numerous "businesses" that I've reported spam end up back in my gmail inbox after years. I've stopped using gmail because of it not iterating on spam blocking capabilities.
  - maccard 2y ago
    My experience with the spam button is 1) they never ever go into my inbox again if they do keep sending, and 2) as someone who has had emails marked as spam (from people who actively clicked the sign up to my newsletter button) your ability to send email gets neutered pretty quickly. What is your experience?
    - inetknght 2y ago
      > What is your experience? Reporting spam does not block the email from being received by my client -- it only blocks the mail from being seen in the inbox, but it still shows up in the spam box. I don't send mail that gets reported as spam in the first place. Or, if it does, then I haven't been meaningfully affected because I can still send and receive the email I want to.
      - maccard 2y ago
        I’m not sure what you expect to happen? > I don't send mail that gets reported as spam in the first place. I ran a newsletter where people had to opt in to receiving it. It was announce news for a video game. You only ended up on this list if you entered your email, clicked join list, and then clicked the link in the email we sent to you to confirm subscription. We had a big unsubscribe button at the very top of the email. We still regularly got people who hit report spam on us, presumably as a way of saying g they didn’t want the email anymore.
        jacobgkau 2y ago
        > I’m not sure what you expect to happen? They're probably expecting their email provider to take that info and use it somewhere upstream of their own individual account. Which, as you've pointed out, does happen. Maybe they don't believe that it happens often enough or something, but the thresholds do need to be reasonably high since, as you pointed out, some people hit the button whether it's justified or not. If the threshold for email provider action was too low, you'd end up not being able to send to anyone with Gmail because one guy forgot he signed up to a list (or signed up and immediately reported it as spam to spite the sender). The person you replied to also sounds like they may be using an offline or third-party email client, though. There's a difference between a "Report Spam" button somewhere your email provider controls, and a "Mark as Spam" button in your third-party email client. I'd assume there's some kind of protocol that could potentially allow third-party clients to report it back to the email provider, but would also assume it may not be as reliable as first-party interfaces.
  - 1shooner 2y ago
    User-reported spam in gmail is actually very efficacious. Aside from the logic gmail applies to your inbox specifically, Google's current violation threshold for those reports is .03%. Beyond that, those reports start to pull down sender IP and domain reputation, which impacts overall deliverablity to anyone's gmail inbox.
    - MiddleEndian 2y ago
      This is why I am quick to report spam, even if they are a "legitimate" business. Utility company / paypal / whoever wants to send me spam? I sincerely hope they are impeded from sending email to anybody.
- thayne 2y ago
  Or they interpret any kind of interaction after a while of inactivity as "yes please sign me up for all your newsletters, even though I previously explicitly told you to unsubscribe me"
  - malfist 2y ago
    The worst for this is Shopify. If you've ever given your email to shopify, they will absolutely share it to a page you visit, even if you don't check out. Throw something in the cart at a random website? Now you're on their mailing list and get reminders to finish checking out. Doesn't matter that you never consented. I don't know how this isn't a violate of the CAN-SPAM act
    - beretguy 2y ago
      Now is a good time to mention SimpleLogin. So... yeah. SimpleLogin.
    - james_marks 2y ago
      I’ve looked into this a bit- I believe it’s related to the checkout page loading with a default of “Agrees to Marketing”. What happens- at scale and I have to believe deliberately- is the “checkout created” event with that flag set to true is considered as “opted-in” by the marketing automation platforms everyone uses, like Klayvio. Even if you immediately un-check it, un-checking doesn’t trigger an unsubscribe event, since you never submitted the form in the first place. And because your Shopify session is now shared across stores, your email address gets opted-into marketing just visiting a checkout page.
      - thirdsun 2y ago
        It's up to the store owner to actually default to "agrees to marketing". I'm not sure if Shopify is to blame when it's the owner that used an illegitimate opt-out for that setting instead of an opt-in. And of course, follow-up mails for abandoned carts are an optional setting too.
- ghaff 2y ago
  One thing that probably happens, as some who attends a lot of events or at least used to, is that you end up getting repopulated in a lot of mailings through purchased lists or badge scans.
- theamk 2y ago
  I go one step further and for the lists which I don't remember subscribing to, I never click "Unsubscribe" - it's "Spam" right away.
  - forgotoldacc 2y ago
    Same for me. Spam or phishing, depending on how annoyed I am. Some site I haven't used in 5 years reminding me to login and check out their deals? Sounds like a phishing trap to me.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
    This is the way. Often times clicking unsubscribe is just sending them a notice that your address is an active inbox. They can abuse that knowledge or resell it. Better to mark as spam.
  - photonthug 2y ago
    Works great except for the gas company, electric and water company, phone company, airlines, cloud provider, os provider, and everyone else that mixes the 5% of legit business that you can’t afford to ignore or miss with the 95% of marketing content that you want to get rid of. Since it’s usually opaque how “mark as spam” and “block” actually works, and since the origin of the mailing lists can be reconfigured any time.. I still feel like I’m endlessly spammed by all the assholes I have to do business with, or else I’m going to miss a bill or a flight.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - mrgaro 2y ago
      It does work, because the companies will realize that gmail no longer delivers their emails and that they need to change their behavior. Also for example AWS SES (Simple Email Service) will give you clear warnings if it detects that recipients mark their email as spam (it seems that for example gmail delivers this information somehow to SES).
- chias 2y ago
  This is where we need something like GDPR, which makes it so that they can't auto subscribe you to a new list whenever they feel like resubscribing you.
- superfrank 2y ago
  I've started replying to the emails when I unsubscribe. Just gibberish or the word "unsubscribe" or something. That way if they email me again I can complain to them with the exact date that I unsubscribed. I feel like I'm turning into a grouchy old man, but I've caught more than a few companies this way over the years and it brings me joy when I do.
  - watwut 2y ago
    What do you do after you catch them?
  - lencastre 2y ago
    In eurolandia one usually sicks GDPR on their behinds. Low level scum may ignore it at their peril and companies with high exposure will comply really fast.
- aitchnyu 2y ago
  Many mailing list SaaS in India use http urls for unsubscribe, and submitting again, including (otherwise) technically excellent apps. Somehow Gmail devs chose to show http urls as valid.
- rubyfan 2y ago
  I really like the hide my email feature in iCloud for this reason. I’ve had to burn an email after making a campaign donation this year. They email you and put you on a million lists but then they also share your email with every other campaign in the ticket. It’s obscene.
- samspot 2y ago
  From my small company experience, this is more likely incompetence than maliciousness. Spreadsheets get passed around and remerged back into the blob. Mind you, I don't mean to excuse this behavior. Just to understand it. And of course, unsubscribe processes will be near the bottom of anyone's priority list until the complaints and threats begin to mount.
doctorpangloss 2y ago
Inventing a new mailing list and adding you to it is exactly the workaround. Anyway, email delivery is regulated by Microsoft and Google.
pcurve 2y ago
Sounds more like non-compliance than a workaround, banking on their alumni being more forgiving to it. ;-)
- caseyohara 2y ago
  In 2015, I somehow got subscribed to the Rensselaer School of Architecture Alumni mailing list on my personal email. I didn't go to RPI, I had never shown any interest in RPI, I don't even know anyone who went to RPI, and I had graduated from a different university about five years earlier. I would get two or three emails a month from them, and I would click unsubscribe every time. The emails would continue. Finally, in 2018, I got the "We're sorry to see you go" unsubscribe confirmation email. Then about three months ago, I started getting emails from the Rensselaer Office of Annual Giving. But this time it was to my work email, not my personal email. How would they get my work email address? I have no idea how this happened, but I suspect universities play fast and loose with their mailing lists for exactly the reason you said. It's obnoxious.
  - compiler-guy 2y ago
    Possibly a typo or false address given by someone else, and the. It’s in their system forever. I get things for some person who apparently fat fingers our somewhat close email addresses all the time.
mitthrowaway2 2y ago
I've also found unsubscribe links that don't do anything. Like the unsubscribe link simply fails to work; nothing happens when you click on it.
- thayne 2y ago
  I got on a mailing list for something from IBM. The unsubscribe link took me to a page that always said it was "temporarily" unavailable I should try again later. The first time I gave them the benefit of the doubt. After a few tries over the course of months, I decided that it was permanently unavailable, and if it really was broken, they didn't have any motivation to fix it. So I set up a filter to automatically delete everything from that domain.
  - justinpombrio 2y ago
    You should email them and tell them they're not in compliance with that regulation. IBM will have lawyers who care, so you might be able to stop that spam not just for yourself but for everyone.
    - immibis 2y ago
      Even better, just report them to he FTC; they could (but probably won't) be liable for up to $50,000 per email.
      - ryandrake 2y ago
        It would be nicer if individuals had a cheap and accessible way to initiate civil action against spammers with "broken" unsubscribe flows, or those who work around the law. I'd love a service where I could forward them all my spam and then a few days or weeks later receive $100 from each spammer for each unwanted E-mail. Obviously it wouldn't work for spam that crossed borders, but it would at least help stop domestic spam.
    - chiggsy 2y ago
      Those lawyers know all about it, and why it's legal. If you want a lawyer to elp you, hire one.
mattgreenrocks 2y ago
You know a startup is floundering when they have to invent new email lists to "accidentally" subscribe you to despite telling them in the past you want to be unsubscribed from everything.
- thayne 2y ago
  It isn't just startups. Huge tech giants do it too.
- zmgsabst 2y ago
  Fidelity did that to me last week, after I’d closed my account with them two weeks prior. I had to call them (!) since they didn’t even include an unsubscribe option as I was a customer (!!) and have the CSR delete my email address from their records — because apparently this happens routinely. Companies routinely break the law in small ways at scale — and they should get the RICO hammer dropped on them for doing so.
bradleyankrom 2y ago
That sounds like how LinkedIn constantly finds new ways categorize notifications that I don't want but continue to receive.
mtgentry 2y ago
Reminds me of text messages from the DNC. I gave my phone number to Obama in ‘08 and have been endlessly pestered ever since.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  Everyone should be educated to never give their number or email to a political campaign of any sort.
  - hgomersall 2y ago
    How do you propose political engagement could work if nobody were willing to provide contact details?
    - mschuster91 2y ago
      Hold the bad actors accountable, as easy as that. Make the fines so painful that even the billion dollar campaigns notice.
      - ethbr1 2y ago
        Given how little the ecosystem is regulated, post Citizens United / PACs, I'm not sure that'd be legally scalable. An elegant weapon of a more civilized age (the early internet): if they're pushy in requiring one -- just lie.
    - Mountain_Skies 2y ago
      I'm quite capable of seeking out information from political candidates instead of them spamming me.
      - ethbr1 2y ago
        But you might not be angry enough!
      - hgomersall 2y ago
bmurphy1976 2y ago
Hey, at least you went to school there. I've gotten a ton of emails from LSU over the years. I don't think I've even been within 100 miles of Louisiana.
monksy 2y ago
So I'm getting these emails from the KamalaHarris campaign. They're signed by the domain as well. I've never given money to the organiation, I'm not connected with their party, I've never signed up for the campaign, or interacted with them. However, I'm constantly being put on their mailing list soliciting for donations. I've seen how the campaigns pass around email addresses without consent. (Mostly from ActBlue) So I'm concerned about validating an email address via unsubscribe. I've reported this to abuse at sendgrid, and now sparkpostmail. They're shopping for email services. Proof of org spamming: Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; dkim=pass header.i=@e.kamalaharris.com header.s=ak01 header.b=kJamWIyP; spf=pass (google.com: domain of bounces@bounces.e.kamalaharris.com designates 168.203.32.245 as permitted sender) smtp.mailfrom=bounces@bounces.e.kamalaharris.com; dmarc=pass (p=REJECT sp=REJECT dis=NONE) header.from=e.kamalaharris.com
- greycol 2y ago
  Unfortunately political parties have more of a free pass on this as Republicans sued providers for their emails getting caught up in spam filters around 2022 (Who would've thought continuosly emailing people who click unsubscribe on your emails who then start reporting as spam would get you put on spam lists). Now political parties (and some bulk providers) have special tools to bypass rejection with some providers as a compromise.
  - immibis 2y ago
    I'm actually amazed at this because it seems to be the first time he Democrats are actually taking advantage of all the loopholes the Republicans made, rather than trying to take the high road.
    - greycol 2y ago
      I'm pretty sure that most marketeers correlate with the "it's fine to send lots of useless crap to people for $x justifcation" philosphy. You pick a Marketeer(D) or Marketeer(R) and they'll be happy to use whatever legal tools they can use in that vein (Sure there's good ones but they're rarer). I'd classify it as a failing in their world view rather than a moral one, not to say there aren't immoral marketeers.
peetle 2y ago
The same thing has happened to me with political donations. Every day I receive an email from a different candidate. It is like whack a mole.
bjoli 2y ago
For those occasions you use GDPR if you are European.
Teever 2y ago
Sounds like a solution to this would be for the consumer to have the ability forward these emails to a regulatory body who would fine the offending party and give a cut of the fine to the offended consumer. This would pair nicely with a progressive fine structure based on the income/assets of the offender that grows exponentially after every offense.
marklubi 2y ago
The lists can be ridiculous sometimes. Many sites have an 'unsubscribe from all' option, that is basically just an unsubscribe from all CURRENT lists. Later they create another list and you end up subscribed to just that new one, even though the unsubscribe from all option is still selected. Edit: Another pet peeve is when you click the link to unsubscribe, and they want you to enter your email address. Bonus points are awarded when your email is in the querystring, but they fail to populate it.
- MereInterest 2y ago
  Or they lie and say that the email address you provided isn't on their mailing lists. As if I hadn't just followed a link from an email they sent.
ok_coo 2y ago
LinkedIn does this and it’s gross. I’ve unsubscribed from at least 3-4 different types of emails from them already.
hobobaggins 2y ago
They probably don't consider themselves (and, as a University, could probably make a strong case) that it's not Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE), which is the only thing that CAN-SPAM applies to. And I have to disagree with the OP, though, because the only people who obey CAN-SPAM are the people who are generally not actually real spammers. CAN-SPAM really only helps you get unsubscribed from marketing emails, not actually spam at all. As with all laws, outlaws will ignore them while law-abiding citizens get caught by them. Real spammers don't care and casually flout laws until, finally, they get caught by technological means. As usual, the regulations are too little, too late, and apply to a completely different group of people than is even named in the title.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  The regulations also limited private lawsuits against spammers so we are stuck with no way of seeking justice or compensation
- gspencley 2y ago
  > CAN-SPAM really only helps you get unsubscribed from marketing emails, not actually spam at all Some of us consider ALL marketing emails to be "spam", with the sole carve out being if the user consciously and actively opted in. I have no problem with marketing newsletters existing if people enjoy receiving and reading them. But if you email me without my active solicitation then it's no different than a door to door salesman physically knocking on your door when you don't expect it and don't welcome the interruption. I will happily concede that legal definitions may differ from my own. But on a personal level, I apply the "Hollywood principle": "Don't call me, I'll call you." If you call me (or email, or knock on my door, or mail me a physical snail-mail letter) and I'm not expecting it, and it is of a commercial nature, it's my definition of spam.
fasa99 2y ago
> I hope this was in violation of the regulation: surely you can't invent a new mailing list that didn't used to exist, add me to it, and require me to unsubscribe from it individually. Exactly, this is the core of the problem. Thought I am grateful for the "unsubscribe" option... I am putridly disgusted by the humiliation of unsubscribing to something I never subscribed to in the first place. It's just awkward and sleazy all around. Put simply : if a name is to be added to such a list, it shall require the consent of said person a priori, a new consent must be made per each list, with blanket future consent strictly banned, and secondly mass solicitations for consent also banned. To those of you who live in California, I expect many, I would advise in these cases to invoke the CCPA act i.e. (a) "give me all the data you have on me" (b) "delete all the data you have on me". You need to ask (a) first, then given that, then ask (b). If you imply you want the data deleted, they will just delete it and say "oopsie we can't provide you the data", so it's important to perform this sequential order. If Californians did this at mass scale I would imagine there would be a lot of positive bleedover to other states in limiting this behavior.
BiteCode_dev 2y ago
This is illegal in Europe, since you can't add somebody to a list without their consent. As usual, I know it's trendy to say on HN the EU is killing innovation with all the regulations, and there is truth to that, but there is also great customer protection, which seems constantly violated in the US. So yes, in the US, companies can flourish, but it seems the consumers are second-class citizens compared to companies. That's why it's nice to have both: eventually, EU regulations leak out to the rest of the world, and the US innovations reach us. We pay the price by having a weaker economy, they pay the price by having less dignity in their life, but there is eventually balance.
- HighGoldstein 2y ago
  If your "innovation" is at risk from consumer protection regulations I question whether it's a good innovation.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - earthnail 2y ago
    There are many examples of successful companies that fall into that category. Sometimes an innovation needs critical mass to work - social networks for example. LinkedIn famously got big by being extremely aggressive on how they mined your contacts. You'd get sued to the moon and back in the EU for this behaviour. LinkedIn is big now, it has established itself and no longer needs to be that aggressive. Any European player that tried to enter the market with a less aggressive stance had no chance - they never reached that critical mass.
    - Vegenoid 2y ago
      And we are all so grateful that LinkedIn's aggressive innovation was allowed to flourish.
    - InDubioProRubio 2y ago
      Bayer would have never invented heroin, if there had not been a market for that and there is a market for that because its a great product. The greatest actually, surpassing all other products, including human society and its the purest form of capitalism. All other products and businesses are just pre-cursors for this one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#History
figassis 2y ago
In college, likely you subscribed your email (or they sneakily did it for you) as you went through your activities, like student government, on-campus jobs, signing up for classes in different departments, multiple extra curriculars, etc. If those are all designed to be their own entities, just sharing the same domain (and sometimes they're on subdomains), then each is likely claiming the right to susbcribe you to their own list. Should be illegal if they're all affiliated to the same org.
raverbashing 2y ago
Here's a better way: report as spam
adamtaylor_13 2y ago
Use the “spam” button on your email client.

ksd482 2y ago

What I have noticed companies do is resume emails after a year or so. They probably think people would forget about unsubscribing them after a year, and for the most part they are right. If I catch any of these email lists not respecting my unsubscribing, I immediately mark them as "spam". Gmail then doesn't send them to my inbox anymore. I don't think just one person marking them as spam hurts them, but at least I feel gratified and my ego is satisfied.

inetknght 2y ago
> I immediately mark them as "spam". Ahh yes, the feel-good response that Google gives you without doing anything substantial to prevent spam from reaching you in the future.
- armada651 2y ago
  If you were using self-hosted e-mail everywhere, then it would be quite obvious that large providers like Google do massively benefit from those user reports when filtering spam.
- kemitche 2y ago
  What makes you say that? In my experience, the spam button works fantastically. There is a gym of some kind that has me on their mailing list, refuses to honor unsubscribe, and sends me probably 2-6 emails a month. They've been doing this for years, but Google correctly gets every single one into spam because I marked one (several?) as spam years ago. Most, if not all, political junk email also ends up in my spam folder after judicious use of the spam button a few years ago.
  - inetknght 2y ago
    > They've been doing this for years, but Google correctly gets every single one into spam because I marked one (several?) as spam years ago. I've had numerous "businesses" that I've reported spam end up back in my gmail inbox after years. I've stopped using gmail because of it not iterating on spam blocking capabilities.
- maccard 2y ago
  My experience with the spam button is 1) they never ever go into my inbox again if they do keep sending, and 2) as someone who has had emails marked as spam (from people who actively clicked the sign up to my newsletter button) your ability to send email gets neutered pretty quickly. What is your experience?
  - inetknght 2y ago
    > What is your experience? Reporting spam does not block the email from being received by my client -- it only blocks the mail from being seen in the inbox, but it still shows up in the spam box. I don't send mail that gets reported as spam in the first place. Or, if it does, then I haven't been meaningfully affected because I can still send and receive the email I want to.
    - maccard 2y ago
      I’m not sure what you expect to happen? > I don't send mail that gets reported as spam in the first place. I ran a newsletter where people had to opt in to receiving it. It was announce news for a video game. You only ended up on this list if you entered your email, clicked join list, and then clicked the link in the email we sent to you to confirm subscription. We had a big unsubscribe button at the very top of the email. We still regularly got people who hit report spam on us, presumably as a way of saying g they didn’t want the email anymore.
      - jacobgkau 2y ago
        > I’m not sure what you expect to happen? They're probably expecting their email provider to take that info and use it somewhere upstream of their own individual account. Which, as you've pointed out, does happen. Maybe they don't believe that it happens often enough or something, but the thresholds do need to be reasonably high since, as you pointed out, some people hit the button whether it's justified or not. If the threshold for email provider action was too low, you'd end up not being able to send to anyone with Gmail because one guy forgot he signed up to a list (or signed up and immediately reported it as spam to spite the sender). The person you replied to also sounds like they may be using an offline or third-party email client, though. There's a difference between a "Report Spam" button somewhere your email provider controls, and a "Mark as Spam" button in your third-party email client. I'd assume there's some kind of protocol that could potentially allow third-party clients to report it back to the email provider, but would also assume it may not be as reliable as first-party interfaces.
- 1shooner 2y ago
  User-reported spam in gmail is actually very efficacious. Aside from the logic gmail applies to your inbox specifically, Google's current violation threshold for those reports is .03%. Beyond that, those reports start to pull down sender IP and domain reputation, which impacts overall deliverablity to anyone's gmail inbox.
  - MiddleEndian 2y ago
    This is why I am quick to report spam, even if they are a "legitimate" business. Utility company / paypal / whoever wants to send me spam? I sincerely hope they are impeded from sending email to anybody.
thayne 2y ago
Or they interpret any kind of interaction after a while of inactivity as "yes please sign me up for all your newsletters, even though I previously explicitly told you to unsubscribe me"
- malfist 2y ago
  The worst for this is Shopify. If you've ever given your email to shopify, they will absolutely share it to a page you visit, even if you don't check out. Throw something in the cart at a random website? Now you're on their mailing list and get reminders to finish checking out. Doesn't matter that you never consented. I don't know how this isn't a violate of the CAN-SPAM act
  - beretguy 2y ago
    Now is a good time to mention SimpleLogin. So... yeah. SimpleLogin.
  - james_marks 2y ago
    I’ve looked into this a bit- I believe it’s related to the checkout page loading with a default of “Agrees to Marketing”. What happens- at scale and I have to believe deliberately- is the “checkout created” event with that flag set to true is considered as “opted-in” by the marketing automation platforms everyone uses, like Klayvio. Even if you immediately un-check it, un-checking doesn’t trigger an unsubscribe event, since you never submitted the form in the first place. And because your Shopify session is now shared across stores, your email address gets opted-into marketing just visiting a checkout page.
    - thirdsun 2y ago
      It's up to the store owner to actually default to "agrees to marketing". I'm not sure if Shopify is to blame when it's the owner that used an illegitimate opt-out for that setting instead of an opt-in. And of course, follow-up mails for abandoned carts are an optional setting too.
ghaff 2y ago
One thing that probably happens, as some who attends a lot of events or at least used to, is that you end up getting repopulated in a lot of mailings through purchased lists or badge scans.
theamk 2y ago
I go one step further and for the lists which I don't remember subscribing to, I never click "Unsubscribe" - it's "Spam" right away.
- forgotoldacc 2y ago
  Same for me. Spam or phishing, depending on how annoyed I am. Some site I haven't used in 5 years reminding me to login and check out their deals? Sounds like a phishing trap to me.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  This is the way. Often times clicking unsubscribe is just sending them a notice that your address is an active inbox. They can abuse that knowledge or resell it. Better to mark as spam.
- photonthug 2y ago
  Works great except for the gas company, electric and water company, phone company, airlines, cloud provider, os provider, and everyone else that mixes the 5% of legit business that you can’t afford to ignore or miss with the 95% of marketing content that you want to get rid of. Since it’s usually opaque how “mark as spam” and “block” actually works, and since the origin of the mailing lists can be reconfigured any time.. I still feel like I’m endlessly spammed by all the assholes I have to do business with, or else I’m going to miss a bill or a flight.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - mrgaro 2y ago
    It does work, because the companies will realize that gmail no longer delivers their emails and that they need to change their behavior. Also for example AWS SES (Simple Email Service) will give you clear warnings if it detects that recipients mark their email as spam (it seems that for example gmail delivers this information somehow to SES).
chias 2y ago
This is where we need something like GDPR, which makes it so that they can't auto subscribe you to a new list whenever they feel like resubscribing you.
superfrank 2y ago
I've started replying to the emails when I unsubscribe. Just gibberish or the word "unsubscribe" or something. That way if they email me again I can complain to them with the exact date that I unsubscribed. I feel like I'm turning into a grouchy old man, but I've caught more than a few companies this way over the years and it brings me joy when I do.
- watwut 2y ago
  What do you do after you catch them?
- lencastre 2y ago
  In eurolandia one usually sicks GDPR on their behinds. Low level scum may ignore it at their peril and companies with high exposure will comply really fast.
aitchnyu 2y ago
Many mailing list SaaS in India use http urls for unsubscribe, and submitting again, including (otherwise) technically excellent apps. Somehow Gmail devs chose to show http urls as valid.
rubyfan 2y ago
I really like the hide my email feature in iCloud for this reason. I’ve had to burn an email after making a campaign donation this year. They email you and put you on a million lists but then they also share your email with every other campaign in the ticket. It’s obscene.
samspot 2y ago
From my small company experience, this is more likely incompetence than maliciousness. Spreadsheets get passed around and remerged back into the blob. Mind you, I don't mean to excuse this behavior. Just to understand it. And of course, unsubscribe processes will be near the bottom of anyone's priority list until the complaints and threats begin to mount.

doctorpangloss 2y ago

Inventing a new mailing list and adding you to it is exactly the workaround. Anyway, email delivery is regulated by Microsoft and Google.

pcurve 2y ago

Sounds more like non-compliance than a workaround, banking on their alumni being more forgiving to it. ;-)

caseyohara 2y ago
In 2015, I somehow got subscribed to the Rensselaer School of Architecture Alumni mailing list on my personal email. I didn't go to RPI, I had never shown any interest in RPI, I don't even know anyone who went to RPI, and I had graduated from a different university about five years earlier. I would get two or three emails a month from them, and I would click unsubscribe every time. The emails would continue. Finally, in 2018, I got the "We're sorry to see you go" unsubscribe confirmation email. Then about three months ago, I started getting emails from the Rensselaer Office of Annual Giving. But this time it was to my work email, not my personal email. How would they get my work email address? I have no idea how this happened, but I suspect universities play fast and loose with their mailing lists for exactly the reason you said. It's obnoxious.
- compiler-guy 2y ago
  Possibly a typo or false address given by someone else, and the. It’s in their system forever. I get things for some person who apparently fat fingers our somewhat close email addresses all the time.

mitthrowaway2 2y ago

I've also found unsubscribe links that don't do anything. Like the unsubscribe link simply fails to work; nothing happens when you click on it.

thayne 2y ago
I got on a mailing list for something from IBM. The unsubscribe link took me to a page that always said it was "temporarily" unavailable I should try again later. The first time I gave them the benefit of the doubt. After a few tries over the course of months, I decided that it was permanently unavailable, and if it really was broken, they didn't have any motivation to fix it. So I set up a filter to automatically delete everything from that domain.
- justinpombrio 2y ago
  You should email them and tell them they're not in compliance with that regulation. IBM will have lawyers who care, so you might be able to stop that spam not just for yourself but for everyone.
  - immibis 2y ago
    Even better, just report them to he FTC; they could (but probably won't) be liable for up to $50,000 per email.
    - ryandrake 2y ago
      It would be nicer if individuals had a cheap and accessible way to initiate civil action against spammers with "broken" unsubscribe flows, or those who work around the law. I'd love a service where I could forward them all my spam and then a few days or weeks later receive $100 from each spammer for each unwanted E-mail. Obviously it wouldn't work for spam that crossed borders, but it would at least help stop domestic spam.
  - chiggsy 2y ago
    Those lawyers know all about it, and why it's legal. If you want a lawyer to elp you, hire one.

mattgreenrocks 2y ago

You know a startup is floundering when they have to invent new email lists to "accidentally" subscribe you to despite telling them in the past you want to be unsubscribed from everything.

thayne 2y ago
It isn't just startups. Huge tech giants do it too.
zmgsabst 2y ago
Fidelity did that to me last week, after I’d closed my account with them two weeks prior. I had to call them (!) since they didn’t even include an unsubscribe option as I was a customer (!!) and have the CSR delete my email address from their records — because apparently this happens routinely. Companies routinely break the law in small ways at scale — and they should get the RICO hammer dropped on them for doing so.

bradleyankrom 2y ago

That sounds like how LinkedIn constantly finds new ways categorize notifications that I don't want but continue to receive.

mtgentry 2y ago

Reminds me of text messages from the DNC. I gave my phone number to Obama in ‘08 and have been endlessly pestered ever since.

ethbr1 2y ago
Everyone should be educated to never give their number or email to a political campaign of any sort.
- hgomersall 2y ago
  How do you propose political engagement could work if nobody were willing to provide contact details?
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    Hold the bad actors accountable, as easy as that. Make the fines so painful that even the billion dollar campaigns notice.
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      Given how little the ecosystem is regulated, post Citizens United / PACs, I'm not sure that'd be legally scalable. An elegant weapon of a more civilized age (the early internet): if they're pushy in requiring one -- just lie.
  - Mountain_Skies 2y ago
    I'm quite capable of seeking out information from political candidates instead of them spamming me.
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      But you might not be angry enough!
    - hgomersall 2y ago

bmurphy1976 2y ago

Hey, at least you went to school there. I've gotten a ton of emails from LSU over the years. I don't think I've even been within 100 miles of Louisiana.

monksy 2y ago

So I'm getting these emails from the KamalaHarris campaign. They're signed by the domain as well. I've never given money to the organiation, I'm not connected with their party, I've never signed up for the campaign, or interacted with them. However, I'm constantly being put on their mailing list soliciting for donations. I've seen how the campaigns pass around email addresses without consent. (Mostly from ActBlue) So I'm concerned about validating an email address via unsubscribe. I've reported this to abuse at sendgrid, and now sparkpostmail. They're shopping for email services. Proof of org spamming: Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; dkim=pass header.i=@e.kamalaharris.com header.s=ak01 header.b=kJamWIyP; spf=pass (google.com: domain of bounces@bounces.e.kamalaharris.com designates 168.203.32.245 as permitted sender) smtp.mailfrom=bounces@bounces.e.kamalaharris.com; dmarc=pass (p=REJECT sp=REJECT dis=NONE) header.from=e.kamalaharris.com

greycol 2y ago
Unfortunately political parties have more of a free pass on this as Republicans sued providers for their emails getting caught up in spam filters around 2022 (Who would've thought continuosly emailing people who click unsubscribe on your emails who then start reporting as spam would get you put on spam lists). Now political parties (and some bulk providers) have special tools to bypass rejection with some providers as a compromise.
- immibis 2y ago
  I'm actually amazed at this because it seems to be the first time he Democrats are actually taking advantage of all the loopholes the Republicans made, rather than trying to take the high road.
  - greycol 2y ago
    I'm pretty sure that most marketeers correlate with the "it's fine to send lots of useless crap to people for $x justifcation" philosphy. You pick a Marketeer(D) or Marketeer(R) and they'll be happy to use whatever legal tools they can use in that vein (Sure there's good ones but they're rarer). I'd classify it as a failing in their world view rather than a moral one, not to say there aren't immoral marketeers.

peetle 2y ago

The same thing has happened to me with political donations. Every day I receive an email from a different candidate. It is like whack a mole.

bjoli 2y ago

For those occasions you use GDPR if you are European.

Teever 2y ago

Sounds like a solution to this would be for the consumer to have the ability forward these emails to a regulatory body who would fine the offending party and give a cut of the fine to the offended consumer. This would pair nicely with a progressive fine structure based on the income/assets of the offender that grows exponentially after every offense.

marklubi 2y ago

The lists can be ridiculous sometimes. Many sites have an 'unsubscribe from all' option, that is basically just an unsubscribe from all CURRENT lists. Later they create another list and you end up subscribed to just that new one, even though the unsubscribe from all option is still selected. Edit: Another pet peeve is when you click the link to unsubscribe, and they want you to enter your email address. Bonus points are awarded when your email is in the querystring, but they fail to populate it.

MereInterest 2y ago
Or they lie and say that the email address you provided isn't on their mailing lists. As if I hadn't just followed a link from an email they sent.

ok_coo 2y ago

LinkedIn does this and it’s gross. I’ve unsubscribed from at least 3-4 different types of emails from them already.

hobobaggins 2y ago

They probably don't consider themselves (and, as a University, could probably make a strong case) that it's not Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE), which is the only thing that CAN-SPAM applies to. And I have to disagree with the OP, though, because the only people who obey CAN-SPAM are the people who are generally not actually real spammers. CAN-SPAM really only helps you get unsubscribed from marketing emails, not actually spam at all. As with all laws, outlaws will ignore them while law-abiding citizens get caught by them. Real spammers don't care and casually flout laws until, finally, they get caught by technological means. As usual, the regulations are too little, too late, and apply to a completely different group of people than is even named in the title.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
The regulations also limited private lawsuits against spammers so we are stuck with no way of seeking justice or compensation
gspencley 2y ago
> CAN-SPAM really only helps you get unsubscribed from marketing emails, not actually spam at all Some of us consider ALL marketing emails to be "spam", with the sole carve out being if the user consciously and actively opted in. I have no problem with marketing newsletters existing if people enjoy receiving and reading them. But if you email me without my active solicitation then it's no different than a door to door salesman physically knocking on your door when you don't expect it and don't welcome the interruption. I will happily concede that legal definitions may differ from my own. But on a personal level, I apply the "Hollywood principle": "Don't call me, I'll call you." If you call me (or email, or knock on my door, or mail me a physical snail-mail letter) and I'm not expecting it, and it is of a commercial nature, it's my definition of spam.

fasa99 2y ago

> I hope this was in violation of the regulation: surely you can't invent a new mailing list that didn't used to exist, add me to it, and require me to unsubscribe from it individually. Exactly, this is the core of the problem. Thought I am grateful for the "unsubscribe" option... I am putridly disgusted by the humiliation of unsubscribing to something I never subscribed to in the first place. It's just awkward and sleazy all around. Put simply : if a name is to be added to such a list, it shall require the consent of said person a priori, a new consent must be made per each list, with blanket future consent strictly banned, and secondly mass solicitations for consent also banned. To those of you who live in California, I expect many, I would advise in these cases to invoke the CCPA act i.e. (a) "give me all the data you have on me" (b) "delete all the data you have on me". You need to ask (a) first, then given that, then ask (b). If you imply you want the data deleted, they will just delete it and say "oopsie we can't provide you the data", so it's important to perform this sequential order. If Californians did this at mass scale I would imagine there would be a lot of positive bleedover to other states in limiting this behavior.

BiteCode_dev 2y ago

This is illegal in Europe, since you can't add somebody to a list without their consent. As usual, I know it's trendy to say on HN the EU is killing innovation with all the regulations, and there is truth to that, but there is also great customer protection, which seems constantly violated in the US. So yes, in the US, companies can flourish, but it seems the consumers are second-class citizens compared to companies. That's why it's nice to have both: eventually, EU regulations leak out to the rest of the world, and the US innovations reach us. We pay the price by having a weaker economy, they pay the price by having less dignity in their life, but there is eventually balance.

HighGoldstein 2y ago
If your "innovation" is at risk from consumer protection regulations I question whether it's a good innovation.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- earthnail 2y ago
  There are many examples of successful companies that fall into that category. Sometimes an innovation needs critical mass to work - social networks for example. LinkedIn famously got big by being extremely aggressive on how they mined your contacts. You'd get sued to the moon and back in the EU for this behaviour. LinkedIn is big now, it has established itself and no longer needs to be that aggressive. Any European player that tried to enter the market with a less aggressive stance had no chance - they never reached that critical mass.
  - Vegenoid 2y ago
    And we are all so grateful that LinkedIn's aggressive innovation was allowed to flourish.
  - InDubioProRubio 2y ago
    Bayer would have never invented heroin, if there had not been a market for that and there is a market for that because its a great product. The greatest actually, surpassing all other products, including human society and its the purest form of capitalism. All other products and businesses are just pre-cursors for this one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroin#History

figassis 2y ago

In college, likely you subscribed your email (or they sneakily did it for you) as you went through your activities, like student government, on-campus jobs, signing up for classes in different departments, multiple extra curriculars, etc. If those are all designed to be their own entities, just sharing the same domain (and sometimes they're on subdomains), then each is likely claiming the right to susbcribe you to their own list. Should be illegal if they're all affiliated to the same org.

raverbashing 2y ago

Here's a better way: report as spam

adamtaylor_13 2y ago

Use the “spam” button on your email client.