5 ms·

Unsubscriber

listrophy 14y ago
so... you'll do the captcha for me, huh? Is that webscale? :P
- jsh4ft 14y ago
  ignore this guy. it's gold.
- philipharry 14y ago
  Considering there are zero captchas implemented for unsubscribing, why yes, yes it is webscale. boom :)
  - philipharry 14y ago
    I was wrong. I've now seen 2 captchas during unsubscribing in the first 500 emails.
revx 14y ago
I can't help but think "what does unsubscriber get from this?". Anyone have any thoughts? I wasn't suspicious until the site said that they would solve the captcha. That means they have people working on this (or some darn good bots), which costs money either way. What do they want with our spam?
- nathanb 14y ago
  Well, we know they get an email address and, quite probably, a username associated with an account. Of course, that would only be of value to someone doing something sketchy... Alternatively, he gets a large sample size of unwanted emails with unsubscribe links. This would be useful for someone writing a gmail plugin (or Thunderbird plugin, or new mail service, or whatever) designed to deal with unwanted mail that's not fully spam (i.e. complies with CAN-SPAM) but which is not desired by the recipient.
  - philipharry 14y ago
    The second paragraph, yes, that's my thinking. If @m5rk and I write up enough rules and process, with enough data, that would be useful to some biz like, oh, gmail. Maybe.
- philipharry 14y ago
  The captcha bit was me just fooling. There are no captchas for unsubscribing. Well, I've never seen any, at least. I did this for 2 reasons: 1) It was an absurdly simple MVP. 2) I actually have been looking for this service, so I wanted to see if others had any interest. 3) Wait, 3?
gee_totes 14y ago
Will Unsubscriber also harass mailers with broken unsubscribe processes? Two pain points for me here: -Anyone who sends out e-mails where there is no unsubscribe link. Instead, you have to reply to the email with "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the subject line, where it is no doubt manually processed. This is especially annoying if you have a catch-all account and it's being filled with mailing list e-mails addressed to people who are no longer at the company. Often times the spammy mailer will not let you unsubscribe since the unsubscribe email was sent to a different address that is no longer active. -Even worse, emails with no unsubsribe link what so ever! If harassment of senders with a broken unsubscribe process is part of the service you are providing, I would gladly pay for this.
- vipervpn 14y ago
  Any email I can't unsubscribe from with one click, I flag as spam. Even stuff I initially signed up to. If I have to log in to change my preferences or reply with REMOVE, it's spam. Easy peasy.
  - philipharry 14y ago
    I agree with this. And, I've also realized I didn't implement it this way when I created http://imby.me http://imby.me But I'm gonna change that, now that I've considered the error of my ways.

so... you'll do the captcha for me, huh? Is that webscale? :P

jsh4ft 14y ago
ignore this guy. it's gold.
philipharry 14y ago
Considering there are zero captchas implemented for unsubscribing, why yes, yes it is webscale. boom :)
- philipharry 14y ago
  I was wrong. I've now seen 2 captchas during unsubscribing in the first 500 emails.

revx 14y ago

I can't help but think "what does unsubscriber get from this?". Anyone have any thoughts? I wasn't suspicious until the site said that they would solve the captcha. That means they have people working on this (or some darn good bots), which costs money either way. What do they want with our spam?

nathanb 14y ago
Well, we know they get an email address and, quite probably, a username associated with an account. Of course, that would only be of value to someone doing something sketchy... Alternatively, he gets a large sample size of unwanted emails with unsubscribe links. This would be useful for someone writing a gmail plugin (or Thunderbird plugin, or new mail service, or whatever) designed to deal with unwanted mail that's not fully spam (i.e. complies with CAN-SPAM) but which is not desired by the recipient.
- philipharry 14y ago
  The second paragraph, yes, that's my thinking. If @m5rk and I write up enough rules and process, with enough data, that would be useful to some biz like, oh, gmail. Maybe.
philipharry 14y ago
The captcha bit was me just fooling. There are no captchas for unsubscribing. Well, I've never seen any, at least. I did this for 2 reasons: 1) It was an absurdly simple MVP. 2) I actually have been looking for this service, so I wanted to see if others had any interest. 3) Wait, 3?

gee_totes 14y ago

Will Unsubscriber also harass mailers with broken unsubscribe processes? Two pain points for me here: -Anyone who sends out e-mails where there is no unsubscribe link. Instead, you have to reply to the email with "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the subject line, where it is no doubt manually processed. This is especially annoying if you have a catch-all account and it's being filled with mailing list e-mails addressed to people who are no longer at the company. Often times the spammy mailer will not let you unsubscribe since the unsubscribe email was sent to a different address that is no longer active. -Even worse, emails with no unsubsribe link what so ever! If harassment of senders with a broken unsubscribe process is part of the service you are providing, I would gladly pay for this.

vipervpn 14y ago
Any email I can't unsubscribe from with one click, I flag as spam. Even stuff I initially signed up to. If I have to log in to change my preferences or reply with REMOVE, it's spam. Easy peasy.
- philipharry 14y ago
  I agree with this. And, I've also realized I didn't implement it this way when I created http://imby.me http://imby.me But I'm gonna change that, now that I've considered the error of my ways.