5 ms·

Gmail auto-unsubscribe simplifies your life

54 points by abennett 17y ago

a2tech 17y ago
This is an excellent little feature. I do wonder though, that if you send the unsubscribe request via this feature if Google lowers the weight of your spam report. As someone that runs a few mailing lists I know that many users will click the 'spam' button in their email client instead of sending an unsubsribe request. They don't realize it, but if enough people do that on gmail, yahoo or hotmail the mailing list is marked as spam and its almost impossible to get unmarked as spam.
zacharypinter 17y ago
I wonder if this will lead to unsubscribe links containing captchas. Oh the irony...
ZeroGravitas 17y ago
They should just offer this directly. You shouldn't have to first declare it "spam" (which I would feel bad about if it was something I'd signed up for), nor should I have to scrabble about in the small print for a link that might then expect me to log in with a password. Maybe Google could push for a standard unsubscribe mechanism with the driver being that you're more likely to get falsely accused of being spam if you don't offer people an easy way out.
mattmaroon 17y ago
They should let you unsubscribe without reporting as spam. As far as I'm concerned, anyone whose mailing list I ended up on as a result of a purchase and who lets me end it with one click shouldn't have their email delivery system damaged by spam reports. Those should be left for the non-opt-in and non-unsubscribable lists.
- mustpax 17y ago
  Think about it this way: when you attempt to unsubscribe, you are in effect telling the mass marketer that this is a live email address. As in, there's an actual human being reading these emails. Such live email addresses are very valuable to spammers. So this feature is susceptible to abuse by spammers providing the unsubscribe functionality, but only prioritizing the attempted unsubscribers higher in their mailing lists. So built into their unsubscribe attempt, there needs to be a way to very strictly penalize those who pretend to allow unsubscribes while ignoring them to harvest more email addresses. Hence, they call it "unsubscribe and mark as spam" because any other email messages you receive from that sender will be marked as spam with extreme prejudice.
  - vaksel 17y ago
    then add another button that just unsubscribes
    - mustpax 17y ago
      Like I already explained: you have to treat all further email to the current address as spam after you unsubscribe. You completely ignore what I wrote and repeat OP's point without making an argument.
      - vaksel 17y ago
        why can't Google "unsubscribe" without labeling the thing as spam. Why can't it block the mail for that one specific user? Being labeled as spam is a BIG deal for companies. You aren't just labeling it as spam for yourself, you are labeling it as spam for the world. When enough people complain the company will automatically get black listed from that email service Do you think a big company like Amazon shouldn't be able to deliver order confirmations, just because a bunch of people labeled it as spam when they tried to unsubscribe. Granted that's probably not a big deal for Amazon, since they have connections, but what about all those small startups? Think of a disadvantage they'd get, compared to big boys with name recognition and connections. It's like that certified email scam. Big companies jump on board, because they can pay the fee. If that ever catches on, you have an additional barrier to entry for the small fish.
        alextp 17y ago
        Yes, I think a big company like amazon should be notified that its emails are being received as spam. I don't recall asking to hear about "new" books that do not interest me (for example), and rather like the fact that gmail's filter has learned that those messages are really spam, as far as I am concerned. I really like pg's definition of spam.
  - dcurtis 17y ago
    This makes sense if all future emails from the sender are marked as spam, but the email I am using to unsubscribe should not be marked as spam. The button should be "unsubscribe and mark all future emails as spam."
- JimmyL 17y ago
  You can - by simply using the normal, mailing list-supplied link to unsubscribe.
  - Timothee 17y ago
    The point of having "Unsubscribe" would be to act like a macro: "Please Gmail, take care of telling that marketer that I'm not interested anymore and delete this email as well". The supplied link isn't always a one-step thing. (I am very annoyed when I'm asked to fill out my email address on the unsubscribe form since they know it!) The way it is set up right now, it looks like the point is mostly to reduce the number of emails received. If you report something as spam, you won't see it in your inbox anyway, so the unsubscribe part can only help Google reducing the overall number of emails.
jlees 17y ago
As a total aside, something I didn't know about until far too recently: hitting 'm' in a Gmail conversation thread mutes it, meaning replies are automatically archived. It doesn't always seem to work, but I find it awfully useful.
- smokinn 17y ago
  Really!? I wonder how often I've done this by accident and never knew figuring the conversation ended.
  - snprbob86 17y ago
    It only works if you enable keyboard shortcuts. It also shows a yellow alert banner along the top of the screen and provides an "Undo" link.
    - smokinn 17y ago
      I probably would've noticed the banner then, thanks. I love the keyboard shortcuts, just never heard about this one.
Erwin 17y ago
This depends on the List-Unsubscribe header: http://www.list-unsubscribe.com/ http://www.list-unsubscribe.com/ which can be set to an email address or link. If you're adding remove links to your outgoing emails, you might as well put it in the header as well. Hotmail/live mail will only show the link for trusted emails IIRC. As Gmail has no "feedback loop" that sends spam reports back to the sender, this is better for me (as an email sender) than nothing. People regularly report email as spam that they signed up for and that they just don't care to receive anymore (they even report transactional email as spam, such as an ordery summary/order shipped email).
dpcan 17y ago
How can we get an auto-activate script for emails that arrive that require clicking a link to activate a new account somewhere?
geuis 17y ago
I don't get this option in Gmail.
geuis 17y ago
I don't get this option in Gmail.

54 points by abennett 17y ago

This is an excellent little feature. I do wonder though, that if you send the unsubscribe request via this feature if Google lowers the weight of your spam report. As someone that runs a few mailing lists I know that many users will click the 'spam' button in their email client instead of sending an unsubsribe request. They don't realize it, but if enough people do that on gmail, yahoo or hotmail the mailing list is marked as spam and its almost impossible to get unmarked as spam.

zacharypinter 17y ago

I wonder if this will lead to unsubscribe links containing captchas. Oh the irony...

ZeroGravitas 17y ago

They should just offer this directly. You shouldn't have to first declare it "spam" (which I would feel bad about if it was something I'd signed up for), nor should I have to scrabble about in the small print for a link that might then expect me to log in with a password. Maybe Google could push for a standard unsubscribe mechanism with the driver being that you're more likely to get falsely accused of being spam if you don't offer people an easy way out.

mattmaroon 17y ago

They should let you unsubscribe without reporting as spam. As far as I'm concerned, anyone whose mailing list I ended up on as a result of a purchase and who lets me end it with one click shouldn't have their email delivery system damaged by spam reports. Those should be left for the non-opt-in and non-unsubscribable lists.

mustpax 17y ago
Think about it this way: when you attempt to unsubscribe, you are in effect telling the mass marketer that this is a live email address. As in, there's an actual human being reading these emails. Such live email addresses are very valuable to spammers. So this feature is susceptible to abuse by spammers providing the unsubscribe functionality, but only prioritizing the attempted unsubscribers higher in their mailing lists. So built into their unsubscribe attempt, there needs to be a way to very strictly penalize those who pretend to allow unsubscribes while ignoring them to harvest more email addresses. Hence, they call it "unsubscribe and mark as spam" because any other email messages you receive from that sender will be marked as spam with extreme prejudice.
- vaksel 17y ago
  then add another button that just unsubscribes
  - mustpax 17y ago
    Like I already explained: you have to treat all further email to the current address as spam after you unsubscribe. You completely ignore what I wrote and repeat OP's point without making an argument.
    - vaksel 17y ago
      why can't Google "unsubscribe" without labeling the thing as spam. Why can't it block the mail for that one specific user? Being labeled as spam is a BIG deal for companies. You aren't just labeling it as spam for yourself, you are labeling it as spam for the world. When enough people complain the company will automatically get black listed from that email service Do you think a big company like Amazon shouldn't be able to deliver order confirmations, just because a bunch of people labeled it as spam when they tried to unsubscribe. Granted that's probably not a big deal for Amazon, since they have connections, but what about all those small startups? Think of a disadvantage they'd get, compared to big boys with name recognition and connections. It's like that certified email scam. Big companies jump on board, because they can pay the fee. If that ever catches on, you have an additional barrier to entry for the small fish.
      - alextp 17y ago
        Yes, I think a big company like amazon should be notified that its emails are being received as spam. I don't recall asking to hear about "new" books that do not interest me (for example), and rather like the fact that gmail's filter has learned that those messages are really spam, as far as I am concerned. I really like pg's definition of spam.
- dcurtis 17y ago
  This makes sense if all future emails from the sender are marked as spam, but the email I am using to unsubscribe should not be marked as spam. The button should be "unsubscribe and mark all future emails as spam."
JimmyL 17y ago
You can - by simply using the normal, mailing list-supplied link to unsubscribe.
- Timothee 17y ago
  The point of having "Unsubscribe" would be to act like a macro: "Please Gmail, take care of telling that marketer that I'm not interested anymore and delete this email as well". The supplied link isn't always a one-step thing. (I am very annoyed when I'm asked to fill out my email address on the unsubscribe form since they know it!) The way it is set up right now, it looks like the point is mostly to reduce the number of emails received. If you report something as spam, you won't see it in your inbox anyway, so the unsubscribe part can only help Google reducing the overall number of emails.

jlees 17y ago

As a total aside, something I didn't know about until far too recently: hitting 'm' in a Gmail conversation thread mutes it, meaning replies are automatically archived. It doesn't always seem to work, but I find it awfully useful.

smokinn 17y ago
Really!? I wonder how often I've done this by accident and never knew figuring the conversation ended.
- snprbob86 17y ago
  It only works if you enable keyboard shortcuts. It also shows a yellow alert banner along the top of the screen and provides an "Undo" link.
  - smokinn 17y ago
    I probably would've noticed the banner then, thanks. I love the keyboard shortcuts, just never heard about this one.

Erwin 17y ago

This depends on the List-Unsubscribe header: http://www.list-unsubscribe.com/ http://www.list-unsubscribe.com/ which can be set to an email address or link. If you're adding remove links to your outgoing emails, you might as well put it in the header as well. Hotmail/live mail will only show the link for trusted emails IIRC. As Gmail has no "feedback loop" that sends spam reports back to the sender, this is better for me (as an email sender) than nothing. People regularly report email as spam that they signed up for and that they just don't care to receive anymore (they even report transactional email as spam, such as an ordery summary/order shipped email).

dpcan 17y ago

How can we get an auto-activate script for emails that arrive that require clicking a link to activate a new account somewhere?

geuis 17y ago

I don't get this option in Gmail.

geuis 17y ago

I don't get this option in Gmail.