Live data from Hacker News

US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button

apnews.com

11–20 of 217 posts

Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button

#11

Anecdotally: A: I get more spam than ever. What is especially annoying is that the majority of reputable companies do this. Order something? Sign up for an account? Set up an LLC? File a trademark? Boom: Spam emails UFN. B: It's easier to unsubscribe than ever: Often one-click at the bottom of the email, or let Gmail/Fastmail etc do it for you. Generally effective. One annoyance I find is the Our terms have been alte…

I've stopped unsubscribing to emails I didn't sign up for and just send to spam. It hurts their "reputation" score and wastes their money (however small amount). I encourage people to stop unsubscribing and just send it to spam.

Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button

#12

Anecdotally: A: I get more spam than ever. What is especially annoying is that the majority of reputable companies do this. Order something? Sign up for an account? Set up an LLC? File a trademark? Boom: Spam emails UFN. B: It's easier to unsubscribe than ever: Often one-click at the bottom of the email, or let Gmail/Fastmail etc do it for you. Generally effective. One annoyance I find is the Our terms have been alte…

B -> Yes, unless the unsubscribe link gets caught by your pi-hole or adguard blocklists :-(

Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button

#13
I would like to see this taken one step further. Anything you can opt in to should be legally required to be at least as easy to opt out of, whether that's a gym membership, tracking cookies, online subscriptions, you name it. If I can join in a click, but have to send a physical letter to a hidden department in the basement of a now defunct military base then none of that should ever fly.

Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button

#14

Anecdotally: A: I get more spam than ever. What is especially annoying is that the majority of reputable companies do this. Order something? Sign up for an account? Set up an LLC? File a trademark? Boom: Spam emails UFN. B: It's easier to unsubscribe than ever: Often one-click at the bottom of the email, or let Gmail/Fastmail etc do it for you. Generally effective. One annoyance I find is the Our terms have been alte…

I get vastly less spam. Gmail just plain deletes most of it without even dumping it into the spam folder. It's down from thousands a month to dozens.

Companies do subscribe me to mailing lists pretty easily but I really don't mind if they honor the unsubscribe link. And most seem to. (The exception was the Red Cross who I eventually had to mark as spam.)

Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button

#16
post #4

Can't recommend privacy.com enough for literally this use case. If I have to spend more than five minutes trying to figure out how to cancel - I'm just turning off my card...

I think most of the times that works and companies don't pursue the small amounts, but turning off the card doesn't actually end the agreement between you and the company. It could end up on your credit report.

> turning off the card doesn't actually end the agreement between you and the company

I know of two hedge funds who buy these claims at a discount and pursue them. If you aren’t concerned with your credit score it probably isn’t a problem; I doubt either sues.

Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button

#17

Anecdotally: A: I get more spam than ever. What is especially annoying is that the majority of reputable companies do this. Order something? Sign up for an account? Set up an LLC? File a trademark? Boom: Spam emails UFN. B: It's easier to unsubscribe than ever: Often one-click at the bottom of the email, or let Gmail/Fastmail etc do it for you. Generally effective. One annoyance I find is the Our terms have been alte…

I've stopped unsubscribing to emails I didn't sign up for and just send to spam. It hurts their "reputation" score and wastes their money (however small amount). I encourage people to stop unsubscribing and just send it to spam.

I'm almost as severe. I look for an unsubscribe button in the email. I click it. If I am not immediately unsubscribed from everything, I mark the email as spam.

Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button

#18
I find it extra ironic that experian is now pimping a service to aggregate and cancel your subscriptions - but if I want to freeze my children's credit reports I have to have a notarized original of their birth certificate and bring it to committee before they will approve. I'm exaggerating obviously, but not by much.

Re: US Government wants to make it easier for you to click the 'unsubscribe' button

#19

Anecdotally: A: I get more spam than ever. What is especially annoying is that the majority of reputable companies do this. Order something? Sign up for an account? Set up an LLC? File a trademark? Boom: Spam emails UFN. B: It's easier to unsubscribe than ever: Often one-click at the bottom of the email, or let Gmail/Fastmail etc do it for you. Generally effective. One annoyance I find is the Our terms have been alte…

I get like 10 Uber mails over the weekend. It's infuriating.

>> Don't you want to go to the airport again this weekend?

>> Do you remember that night out in Austin 3 weeks ago? The same driver is available again.

Sure how about he picks me up 1300 miles from Austin.

>> How about something to eat? You ordered 4 weeks ago from place XYZ.

I gave that place a 2 star rating.

Post reply on HN