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> The "unsubscribe" button in Indeed's job notification emails leads me to an impassable Cloudflare challenge. That's a CAN-SPAM act violation. FTC: "Tell rec
by Animats 2y ago
> The "unsubscribe" button in Indeed's job notification emails leads me to an impassable Cloudflare challenge.
That's a CAN-SPAM act violation.
FTC: "Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future marketing email from you. Your message must include a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting marketing email from you in the future. Craft the notice in a way that’s easy for an ordinary person to recognize, read, and understand. Creative use of type size, color, and location can improve clarity. Give a return email address or another easy Internet-based way to allow people to communicate their choice to you. You may create a menu to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to stop all marketing messages from you. Make sure your spam filter doesn’t block these opt-out requests."[1]
Experian was recently fined for making it hard to opt out of their marketing emails.
The actual regulation text:
§ 316.5 Prohibition on charging a fee or imposing other requirements on recipients who wish to opt out.
Neither a sender nor any person acting on behalf of a sender may require that any recipient pay any fee, provide any information other than the recipient's electronic mail address and opt-out preferences, or take any other steps except sending a reply electronic mail message or visiting a single Internet Web page, in order to:
(a) Use a return electronic mail address or other Internet-based mechanism, required by 15 U.S.C. 7704(a)(3), to submit a request not to receive future commercial electronic mail messages from a sender; or
(b) Have such a request honored as required by 15 U.S.C. 7704(a)(3)(B) and (a)(4).
That seems to cover it. File a CAN-SPAM act complaint (spam@uce.gov). Send a copy to the legal department of the sender.
[1] https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/can-spam-act...
- driverdan 2y agoUnfortunately the government seems to have given up on enforcing the CAN-SPAM act. If they actually enforced it spam companies like Salesforce would face massive fines.
- bluGill 2y agoYou can press charges yourself and get lawyer fees for your efforts. Probably not worth it, but you don't need the government to do this.
- ycombinatrix 2y agoYeah, the same way I don't need to pay taxes...
- ranger_danger 2y agoIndividuals cannot "press charges", nor can the police. Only a state/federal government attorney can file charges against someone. A person or police officer might recommend some action to a DA, but it's completely up to their discretion what to do with that information.
- LeifCarrotson 2y ago"Visiting a single Internet Web page" is considerably more involved than that. In practice, it means making a request to the DNS servers and running Javascript that's injected by the CDN/proxy which "verifies" (runs some heuristics) that you're allowed to load that page. It's like a restaurant that complies with a local food access requirement to be open at a certain time... but only by having a drive-through that requires you to not just be a human being, but also to drive a car to get to the restaurant.
- mdaniel 2y agoI would suspect that OP is choosing the webpage out of convenience but that there is a List-Unsubscribe: header hiding in the raw version of the email, cheerfully nuking the FTC complaint. Now, demonstrating that the List-Unsubscribe worked is left as an exercise to the reader, but let's be honest, it's the same with the web page variant with bonus points for those pages usually ending it "yeah, we'll get around to it is 364 business days" or some shit
- salzig 2y agoThanks for that note. I receive „spam“ by a US based Car Rentel/Leasing Company, cause they prevent me from unsubscribing because i am in European IP-Range (geo-blocking). Especially „nice“ cause they send me contract specific details of one of their customers, who misspelled his email address.
- montecarl 2y agoI'm in a similar boat. A UK bank thinks I'm one of their customers (someone with a similar name). The reply address is no-reply@ and I'm not about to call a foreign bank.
- dboreham 2y agoQuick note that if you use a proper email hosting service, or host yourself, you can add a sender block rule to eliminate this nuisance.
- causality0 2y agoAre there email services which don't allow you to block addresses or keywords?
- luckylion 2y agoI had the same happen with a AU insurance company that also made it hard to reach them. I sent an email to their regulator that this company keeps sending me confidential information about one of their clients. It took one day until I received an email from the company informing me that they've corrected the mistake and I shall no longer receive any emails, and it worked, I haven't received a single one since.
- jorisboris 2y agoMaybe I’m lazy but why do above four posters do so much effort? I just mark as spam and or block the sender
- antonvs 2y agoDon't worry, the next administration is likely to eliminate any rules like that.
- account42 2y agoInane low effort comment. CAN-SPAM was introduced by Republicans and signed into law by Bush btw.
- numpad0 2y agoIt feels weird that a completely US based Recruit acquisition shows such a typical Recruit behavior...
- solatic 2y agoMakes me wonder. If it's illegal to deploy bot protection on unsubscribe links, and there are massive lists of leaked email addresses available, surely someone has tried to mass-unsubscribe tons of email addresses from tons of mailing lists?
- dolmen 2y agoMore likely: someone tried to automate unsubscribing one e-mail address from massive list of mailing lists.
- ycombinatrix 2y agobrb unsubscribing the world from Indeed
- account42 2y agoUnsubscribe links can include additional authentication information, as long as it is all included with the link in the mail. If you don't do that, bot protection isn't going to stop a dedicated troll.