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

#141

Post by OkGoDoIt » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 2:44 PM UTC

mtlynch wrote: post #117

faitswulff wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just set up a wildcard email forwarder on my domain and set up an email address for every domain or website I sign up for (e.g. ycombinator.com@mydomain.net). Keeps everything nicely separated, logins are predictable, and I can track who got my email from where. It makes certain things more complicated, like authenticating against certain services, or if someone sends and invitation to one of your domain emails, bu…

I used to have this problem with Gmail because it was easy to receive mail at a new address, but always a 10-minute process to start sending mail from a new address. I just switched to Fastmail and was pleasantly surprised with their solution. You can set up wildcard response aliases so that if you receive an email to random.onetime@mydomain.net, when you hit reply, it automatically sends from the random.onetime@mydo…

I’ve been dealing with that frustrating aspect of Gmail for years, had no idea fastmail had a better solution. Thanks for the heads up!

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

#142

Post by J-Kuhn » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

dharmab wrote: post #138

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #110

My e-mail address is on a 3rd party list that is sold repeatedly to marketers. The marketers do not employ unsubscribe links or provide a means to get off of their list in the e-mail. I'd rather not engage them and ask their source. Is there a way to learn who the original list holder is and get my address off?

This is illegal in the US under the CAN-SPAM act, with severe penalties. No legitimate company will send marketing emails without an opt-out. If you don’t want to engage them, you should mark the email as junk. This flags the email in their email provider. If their rate of junk email increases too high, they lose their ability to send email through that provider.

Afaik, there is no automated information flow to the provider. It kind of works, but differently than you said.

Let's say, you flag a mail on GMail as spam. GMail's filters will learn: both the spam filter for your inbox as well as a shared filter. If the shared filter learned that all mails from that provider are junk, then gmail may not accept any more mails from that provider.

But the provider is interested in his ability to send mails to gmail customers - because his own customers demand it. So, a good provider would just kick out that rouge customer who sends junk.

And that's where the fun begins: A big provider can deliver spam, if it's only a small percentage of his usual volume (too big to fail). And not every provider is cooperative. And the process is slow - some filter has to be fed a large amount of junk, so it finally rejects a large portion of of the valid mail.

A better way is: Get your provider to send an abuse mail to the origin. In my experience, it's still a fight against windmills, but every bit helps.

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

#143

Post by Moru » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

gruturo wrote: post #67

jen729w wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fine option, which I also endorse. In all seriousness, here’s what I do to combat Insidious Mailing List Spam. It’s kinda simple. 1. Get one email address for friends and family. Never ever post it online. Never use it for any shopping or anything. This is your email address . There is no mailbox anxiety because you get one email a day to this address and it’s from your dad and you love him. 2. Get another one for…

I have been doing this for well over 10 years and can confirm the approach, with one small tweaks: The address for friends and family should be split in 2 - one for the really technologically literate ones, who will never do stupid crap with it like using it in a pinterest "Share this!" form, and one for everyone else (who must never learn you didn't give them "best" address because they're clueless). Also, if you ow…

You can also use the + for email adress, my.name+facebook@domain.com. No need to register another mail adress for each service. It can lead to problems logging in though, not everyone knows that + is a legal character in mail adresses.

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

#144

Post by Moru » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 2:59 PM UTC

gus_massa wrote: post #52

jen729w wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fine option, which I also endorse. In all seriousness, here’s what I do to combat Insidious Mailing List Spam. It’s kinda simple. 1. Get one email address for friends and family. Never ever post it online. Never use it for any shopping or anything. This is your email address . There is no mailbox anxiety because you get one email a day to this address and it’s from your dad and you love him. 2. Get another one for…

> Get one email address for friends and family. Never ever post it online. It works until someone sends an email with cat photos to your secret address and all their contact list, and forget to use bcc.

That's why you have one mail for clueless and one for those that do have a clue. Been doing thish for 25? years :-)

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

#145

Post by needle0 » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

Btw, how specific is the American CAN-SPAM act in terms of how the unsubscribe link should work? In my country I sometimes get emails with unsubscribe links that require you to log in first, which can be a pain to pull out the credentials when you don't really remember signing up for it in the first place. Does CAN-SPAM specify, say, that an unsubscribe link 1)must not require a login? 2)must lead to completion of the subscribe process within x steps?

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

#146

Post by cabaalis » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

jen729w wrote: post #2

Cool idea I suppose, but for $5/month wouldn’t I just not sign up to those mailing lists in the first place? Or get another email address? This doesn’t feel very sustainable.

I have never once in my life "signed up" to a mailing list. The only reason I can think of that I receive so much spam is from sites where I've used my email address selling that information to others, or otherwise leaking it.

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

#147

Post by tobyhinloopen » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 3:10 PM UTC

pyepye wrote: post #112

I created a similar service earlier this year which runs on exactly the same idea (forwarding emails to unsubscribe to them). It's nice to see some validation for the idea on HN. I've attacked the problem from a different angle though - I've tried to automate the service a lot more. Automatically looking for the unsubscribe button and filling out any HTML forms that appear etc. It doesn't always work but it's been fu…

Yours is much better/cheaper

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

#148

Post by faitswulff » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 3:17 PM UTC

mtlynch wrote: post #117

faitswulff wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just set up a wildcard email forwarder on my domain and set up an email address for every domain or website I sign up for (e.g. ycombinator.com@mydomain.net). Keeps everything nicely separated, logins are predictable, and I can track who got my email from where. It makes certain things more complicated, like authenticating against certain services, or if someone sends and invitation to one of your domain emails, bu…

I used to have this problem with Gmail because it was easy to receive mail at a new address, but always a 10-minute process to start sending mail from a new address. I just switched to Fastmail and was pleasantly surprised with their solution. You can set up wildcard response aliases so that if you receive an email to random.onetime@mydomain.net, when you hit reply, it automatically sends from the random.onetime@mydo…

Oh wow, that’s actually a very compelling reason to look at FastMail, thanks!

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

#149

Post by nullandvoid » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 3:19 PM UTC

sleavey wrote: post #99

nullandvoid wrote: post #79

For me fast mail alias for every site I use, and a password manager, mean spam is a problem of the past Feels great having separation on every site

How does this reduce spam? All it tells you is which site sold or leaked your information to the spammer.

Just delete the alias once you see any rubbish hit your inbox

Honestly with 100 sites I've maybe had to delete 1 or 2 so its very low effort

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

#150

Post by necovek » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 3:25 PM UTC

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…

The problem is the one of scale and time waste: you are asking recipients to decide whether your email is mass-spam, commercial unsolicited email (also spam), something they subscribed to using a dark pattern (prechecked checkbox), something they subscribed to on purpose (and how long ago). To top it all off, some use those unsubscribe links or embedded images to track and confirm how real a recipient is. And many an unsubscribe link is simply broken.

You have to accept the reality that in very few cases people want these emails, so you are asking them to expend the effort in deciphering origin, purpose and viability of unsubscribing for the few where it will work.

If you are in the legitimate email business, you should design around this reality.