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Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

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Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#371

Post by dredmorbius »

tommiegannert wrote: post #55

I'm receiving email spam for my business ("Nice product! What does your Go-To-Market strategy look like? ..."), and they often include 'if you don't want more emails from me, just reply "remove me."'. I assume this is either to create a sunk cost, to validate that the email address works, or to avoid me hitting the Report spam button in GMail. The fact that I'm not replying even after your second attempt should be a…

A visible unsubscribe also contributes to pro forma compliance with the 2003 CAN-SPAM act.

Many feel that this isn't actually effective in stopping spam.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003>

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#372

Post by Spooky23 »

mikesabat wrote: post #17
solardev wrote: post #3

It kinda depends on which platform handles their bulk messages. For example, if they are messaging you through Twilio, replying with "STOP" will cause Twilio itself to opt you out of messages ( https://help.twilio.com/articles/223134027-Twilio-support-fo... ), and the sender can't disable that ( https://help.twilio.com/articles/360034798533-Getting-Starte... ). It's kinda like how Mailchimp handles unsubscriptions fo…

Speaking mostly for the US here. The STOP keyword is mandated as unsubscribe at the carrier level (Verizon, ATT, TMo) not just the vendor level. So if you reply STOP, it's very likely that you will not receive another message from that number. This will be true for any programmatic SMS vendor. There could be smaller scale & more manual approaches, but that would be rare. There has been a big effort in the last year+…

Someone signed my work phone up for MAGA nonsense - I get urgent messages from “Marco Rubio”. They done honor stop messages.

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#373

Post by Spooky23 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #290
iamthepieman wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse if someone else signs up somehow using your contact info. I got signed up (via email thankfully) for a political party in another country and no amount of "mark as spam", unsubscribe or replying would get me off the list. Eventually I just had to create a filter that dumps those messages in the trash. It must be something with non-U.S. English speaking countries because I get numerous semi-spam messages in…

My wife had someone do sign up for a bank account with my wife's gmail address. She told the bank they got it wrong, and they went away for a bit and then they re-signed up AGAIN. So she told the bank to close the account. It didn't re-occur after that. A number of elderly folks have had this issue as well. I'm really at a loss on how to fix it, some times there are bad actors but generally it seems folks are clueles…

I have a common-ish first initial, last name Gmail account. The number of people who think they have my address is staggering. Hundreds over the years.

In one case, the manager of a large factory was forwarding me an email with remote access credentials and VPN software every month.

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#374

Post by Spooky23 »

Shadowmist wrote: post #115
solardev wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a previous election cycle, I made the mistake of donating a few thousand dollars to several candidates. Since then, I get spammed through the year, and close to a major election, it's dozens of emails and phone calls and text messages every week. Thankfully, Gmail catches 99% of the spam emails and my Pixel phone filters out spam texts and calls. It has a built-in Google Assistant mode that screens unknown callers…

I thought about telling everyone to vote against whoever spams (phone/sms/email/mail/etc) the most. Chances are that whoever is funding the spam is expecting for a return on their investment to convince me to vote in a manner that is more beneficial to them than it is to me. The problem is that once they identify you as voting against spammers it encourages them to false flag spam you from a PAC that looks like it su…

The people who run campaigns are hired guns and they just collect lists.

A relative won an award from an organization a decade ago, the consultants just steal or otherwise retain the mailing lists and use them forever. I get pitches from many NYC council candidates from that one dinner

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#375

Post by Spooky23 »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #251
jghn wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For political spam I have a rule that I refuse to vote for any candidate who directly or indirectly sends me a text asking for their vote. If everyone did that, perhaps fewer politicians would go this route.

Honestly it's terrifying that there are so many real-life questions of self-governance and some citizens are just out there casting votes for something like this.

Don’t sweat it. People are fickle and make all sorts of irrational decisions.

Many super nerdy online people profess to die on various molehills. Fortunately, they don’t represent a lot of volume.

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#376

Post by nullfield »

adastra22 wrote: post #94
mikesabat wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking mostly for the US here. The STOP keyword is mandated as unsubscribe at the carrier level (Verizon, ATT, TMo) not just the vendor level. So if you reply STOP, it's very likely that you will not receive another message from that number. This will be true for any programmatic SMS vendor. There could be smaller scale & more manual approaches, but that would be rare. There has been a big effort in the last year+…

> There has been a big effort in the last year+ to clean up the space and require consent before any SMS is sent. Unless it is political

Which is why i just report (to Verizon) every piece of shit political spam text as junk as I delete it.

The “do not call” registry had a purpose, and it’d have been so easy to add an additional “and also no political anything” to it. Let them burn.

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#377

Post by hypeatei »

zahlman wrote: post #341
hypeatei wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet another reason why SMS 2FA should not be used. Shameful.

It's used, as far as I can tell, because banks don't want to have to explain to millions of customers how to use anything else.

It's perfectly fine if people want to use it, but at least provide the option for TOTP or hardware keys behind a big scary warning page or something.

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#378

Post by patrickmcnamara »

dqv wrote: post #91
patrickmcnamara wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For short codes in the USA, it technically does not have to be. And in fact businesses have to regularly check for requests even like "please don't send me messages" to be compliant.

> And in fact businesses have to regularly check for requests even like "please don't send me messages" to be compliant. That's only vaguely true. The FCC has effectively said "here's a list of words that are considered reasonable opt out words and let the courts decide what is reasonable when there is a dispute." [0] They're basically deferring to the courts to determine reasonableness. Obviously it's a good practic…

Sorry for the late reply, but these are rules from the CTIA, not the FCC that I am referring to. The CTIA being an industry body for telecoms in US.

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#379

Post by reginald78 »

zahlman wrote: post #341
hypeatei wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet another reason why SMS 2FA should not be used. Shameful.

It's used, as far as I can tell, because banks don't want to have to explain to millions of customers how to use anything else.

Also because once they get that number under the guise of needing it for security they can use it for marketing texts. It's a win win!

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#380

Post by tracker1 »

lucb1e wrote: post #299
tracker1 wrote: post #288

It's funny, but I've got the opposite problem... I'm working on a personal/hobby site, and I want the authentication to verify a person's sms/phone number. It's mostly going to be a community site (think online BBSes) and I want to minimize the risk of bots. I decided to go with Twilio for this purpose, solely for SMS 2FA, but twilio is entirely geared to supporting businesses with marketing campaigns and I cannot se…

Always the same issue for hobby sites. Was hoping to recoup the cost of two domain names (one real, one typo catcher) and cheap hosting by putting ads on a search engine for lyrics. Site could not be verified because it "has no content". Says Google. They did no searches but just complained it's a clean page, as though a clean search engine homepage is foreign to them. I was surprised by the stupidity and mildly anno…

Yeah, for something like that, you really need some form of navigable index or sitemap. Used to work for an auto classifieds site, and the sitemap and updating with the latest items daily was key to the google fu. Along with navigable entry points to search results.

Kind of counter intuitive for effectively a search though.

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