Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing

#121

Post by randerson » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 1:34 PM UTC

m-p-3 wrote: post #106

sleavey wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's worse is when the unsubscribe link takes you to a page where you can select the reason why you are unsubscribing, and it doesn't include an option like "I never signed up to this mailing list". I've never in my life checked the box to sign up to any mailing list, so this is always my reason, yet some arrogant marketers believe they always obtain consent when they add emails to their mailing lists and so remove…

The even worse scenario is when the unsubscribe workflow is hidden behind a login screen. Unsubscribing from a mailing list should be one of two clicks at most.

Especially when you don’t even have an account. I’ve had to create an account just to unsubscribe before.

Re: Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing

#122

Post by HenryBemis » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 1:34 PM UTC

oliwarner wrote: post #111

arielm wrote: post #74

As someone who’s responsible for sending emails, all of the comments about “marking it as spam is easier than unsubscribing” really make me cringe. For several reasons: 1. If you subscribe to a list then please please please take the time to locate the very clearly marked unsubscribe link, or use the one that gmail or your other email client shows. I spend a lot of time making sure it’s suuuper easy to unsubscribe. 2…

Unsolicited, commercial email is spam. Divorce yourself from this notion that it's sometimes okay to send it. It's not just a newsletter. It don't care that you now offer free delivery. If the recipient didn't explicitly ask you for marketing communications, you're just as bad as the people offering penis enlargement pills. That's why you get treated the same. If it is something I asked for, I will click the unsubscr…

I have a fundamental issue with "Unsubscribe". In most cases I want to be removed from their registry/"right to be forgotten".

"Unsubscribe" is a smokescreen for the above purpose. Most people believe that "Unsubscribe" makes these companies go away, but in reality it just hides the fact that they still own some of your data. And if it is companies like Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, they tend to follow you around the web, even if you haven't logged on to their service at the time (this has been discussed plenty).

I am in EU, so GDPR applies. I prefer to (instead) take a few mins and either respond and/or respond and include their "privacy@example.com" asking them as per GDPR to delete me from their records, which they (most) claim to have done so.

In some extreme cases, I filter to auto-delete their crap. I understand the grandfather of this post claiming that we should make the effort to do things clean and neat (which I honestly do and urge friends and family to also do), but there is an imbalance here. Some companies act in a very unethical way. They take the (beneficial to them) gamble that most people will prefer to flag as spam, than go through the multiple hoops of "Unsubscribing". The fact that he/she acts ethically, caring for the marketing effectiveness of his/her efforts makes him the minority (imho).

I don't hate advertisements or advertisers. They are people too. I just dislike the practices of the majority of marketers.

Re: Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing

#123

Post by robertelder » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 1:39 PM UTC

How does this work from a technical perspective? If I forward mail to this service instead of clicking the 'unsubscribe' link, then how do they 'unsubscribe' me on my behalf? In order to complete the unsubscription process, the newsletter owner needs to receive an email (usually generated automatically by the mail client when clicking the 'unsubscribe link') that comes from the person being unsubscribed. If I outsource this process, this means that 'please-unsubscribe.com' will need to spoof emails from me on my behalf and send them the email specified in the List-Unsubscribe email header. If spoofed emails are not used and they come from 'please-unsubscribe.com' this won't be very actionable to the newsletter owner. From their perspective, they're now going to get 'unsubscribe' notifications that all come from an email at 'please-unsubscribe.com' which never signed up to the newsletter in the first place.

This all assumes that the newsletter unsubscription process is using the email based method instead of the link based method (which is a good assumption email-based is more common).

Re: Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing

#124

Post by RomanPushkin » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 1:45 PM UTC

Any way you can unsubscribe me from snail mail marketing in my real post box?

Re: Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing

#125

Post by rapind » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 1:46 PM UTC

oliwarner wrote: post #111

arielm wrote: post #74

As someone who’s responsible for sending emails, all of the comments about “marking it as spam is easier than unsubscribing” really make me cringe. For several reasons: 1. If you subscribe to a list then please please please take the time to locate the very clearly marked unsubscribe link, or use the one that gmail or your other email client shows. I spend a lot of time making sure it’s suuuper easy to unsubscribe. 2…

Unsolicited, commercial email is spam. Divorce yourself from this notion that it's sometimes okay to send it. It's not just a newsletter. It don't care that you now offer free delivery. If the recipient didn't explicitly ask you for marketing communications, you're just as bad as the people offering penis enlargement pills. That's why you get treated the same. If it is something I asked for, I will click the unsubscr…

The most annoying thing for me is when my users flag a transactional email as spam (I don’t send marketing). What you don’t want your text only receipt?!

So I reached out to a few of my users to figure out why they were flagging their receipt as spam... turns out they don’t differentiate between the “spam” button and the “delete” button. So really they just didn’t care to have their receipt (perfectly legit) and are clicking whatever button removes it.

The button could say “Launch Nukes” and if removes the message from their immediate view they’ll push it.

Re: Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing

#126

Post by BenjiWiebe » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 1:49 PM UTC

robertelder wrote: post #123

How does this work from a technical perspective? If I forward mail to this service instead of clicking the 'unsubscribe' link, then how do they 'unsubscribe' me on my behalf? In order to complete the unsubscription process, the newsletter owner needs to receive an email (usually generated automatically by the mail client when clicking the 'unsubscribe link') that comes from the person being unsubscribed. If I outsour…

It's not at all common anymore to use email replies for unsubscribing. All the marketing emails I get have unsubscribe links, and it's been that way for a few years at least.

Re: Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing

#127

Post by astura » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 1:49 PM UTC

RomanPushkin wrote: post #124

Any way you can unsubscribe me from snail mail marketing in my real post box?

If you live in the us you can opt out of a certain type of junk mail from companies you don't have a relationship with:

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0148-prescreened-credi...

Re: Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing

#128

Post by iamacyborg » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 1:51 PM UTC

HenryBemis wrote: post #122

oliwarner wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsolicited, commercial email is spam. Divorce yourself from this notion that it's sometimes okay to send it. It's not just a newsletter. It don't care that you now offer free delivery. If the recipient didn't explicitly ask you for marketing communications, you're just as bad as the people offering penis enlargement pills. That's why you get treated the same. If it is something I asked for, I will click the unsubscr…

I have a fundamental issue with "Unsubscribe". In most cases I want to be removed from their registry/"right to be forgotten". "Unsubscribe" is a smokescreen for the above purpose. Most people believe that "Unsubscribe" makes these companies go away, but in reality it just hides the fact that they still own some of your data. And if it is companies like Google, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, they tend to follow you ar…

> I have a fundamental issue with "Unsubscribe". In most cases I want to be removed from their registry/"right to be forgotten".

Right, but that's not an unsubscribe issue. You're not trying to unsubscribe from someone's mailing list, you're trying to be removed entirely from their database. They're entirely separate things.

Re: Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing

#129

Post by iamacyborg » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 1:53 PM UTC

oliwarner wrote: post #113

graeme wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you subscribe to a list You missed that key line. It may surprise you because you personally don’t do this, but regular people love signing up for email newsletters. This is very different from email sent unexpectedly when you make an account somewhere. The OP was clearly talking about a list the user has asked to receive. These tend to have fairly clear unsubscribe links in the footer.

IME "asked for" is too often code for "bought something 5 years ago", "didn't read the terms and conditions". Rarely real, informed consent. The one exception —again, just in my 20 years experience doing this crap— is when you pay them, eg "10% off your first order when you subscribe to our newsletter". This is still more coerced consent than informed, but better than most subscriptions.

As someone who's been doing email marketing for a decade, you'd be subscribed by how many people are more than happy to sign up to a mailing list without being "coerced" as you describe.

We get that you don't like marketing email, but plenty of people do.

Re: Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing

#130

Post by robertelder » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 1:57 PM UTC

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #126

robertelder wrote: post #123

How does this work from a technical perspective? If I forward mail to this service instead of clicking the 'unsubscribe' link, then how do they 'unsubscribe' me on my behalf? In order to complete the unsubscription process, the newsletter owner needs to receive an email (usually generated automatically by the mail client when clicking the 'unsubscribe link') that comes from the person being unsubscribed. If I outsour…

It's not at all common anymore to use email replies for unsubscribing. All the marketing emails I get have unsubscribe links, and it's been that way for a few years at least.

I just checked a few newsletter emails in my inbox, and they all offer List-Unsubscribe: mailto: based unsubscription. From what I see, it is quite universal and more common than link-based unsubscription. Newsletter providers prefer not to use the url based unsubscription because some email providers will crawl the URLs in emails and automatically unsubscribe people without them knowing.

It's also possible that you're talking about a 'link' (a href) in the email body that goes to the newsletter provider's site and ask them a bunch of questions (why are you unsubscribing etc.). That's a different concept entirely.

From what I've seen, the email-based way is the primary unsubscription method in use today. Even when you use the gmail feature "Mark this as spam", depending on what you click, it will just send an email on your behalf to the to whatever is specified in the List-Unsubscribe: mailto: header.