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

apnews.com

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

#21

Post by JKCalhoun »

> In June, the Justice Department, referred by the FTC, filed a lawsuit against software maker Adobe and two of its executives

:

> Dana Rao, Adobe’s general counsel, said in an emailed statement that Adobe disagrees with the lawsuit’s characterization of its business and “we will refute the FTC’s claims in court.”

Gross.

But back to topic of the headline — make it easier to click 'unsubscribe'? Why not instead make it harder to click 'subscribe' in the first place?

Thanks internet, for giving us this shitty opt-out world we live in now.

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

#22

Post by nytesky »

What is the shopping cart service that follows me around the web, where if I put something in a cart, then walk away I get email about it. Without even signing in, often it’s a new to me retailer, but they use one of those cart nagging checkout services? Can I turn that off?

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

#23

Post by voytec »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #11
the__alchemist wrote: post #7

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 have different reasons for not doing it: unsubscribing usually requires opening a website riddled with tracking, thus running potentially dangerous code on your device. Secondly, it confirms that your address is active and that SPAM message was read. Unsubscribing from one garbage can result in being added on several other garbage spam lists.

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

#24

Post by FergusArgyll »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #11
the__alchemist wrote: post #7

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.

Yes, I go a little further. If I get more emails than I consider acceptable (even if I signed up originally), I mark it as spam. call me mean, but this is my email address and if you're gonna send me endless spam emails which obviously no one actually wants, then you're spam.

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

#25

Post by ghaff »

jfengel wrote: post #8

Ah, not just unsubscribe from a mailing list, but cancel a recurring payment.

That's the bigger deal and the target of these TBA proposed rules. Legit (and even not so legit) retailers and mailing lists tend to be pretty easy to unsubscribe from and Gmail files the majority of retailer, etc. mailings in the Promotions tab anyway that I just glance at from time to time unless there's something interesting. (I used to use a separate email account when I ordered things but that became more trouble than it was worth.)

The other thing that used to deluge my work account was mailings as a result of tradeshows which I attended a lot of. I get far fewer on my personal email although that will probably pick up as I use it now for a small consulting business.

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

#26

Post by jwally »

criddell wrote: post #10
jwally wrote: 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.

Not a silver bullet solution for sure. Gyms especially. But for SAAS services, tv type subscriptions, etc - it works well. Ymmv.

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

#27

Post by th3w3bmast3r »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #11
the__alchemist wrote: post #7

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.

Same - I've given up unsubscribing and sending it straight to spam. Especially if I never signed up for it in the first place.

If I did sign up for it, I do the polite thing and unsubscribe if they make it easy.

But yeah - spam is getting aggravating. I am getting spam text messages now....

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

#28

Post by litenboll »

Disclosure: I only read up until it was revealed what the policy was.

This was always my opinion on this. "As easy to cancel as it is to sign up". It's simple, and completely shuts down this malicious behaviour without making it harder to operate for the honest companies (or worse for customers in any way I can think of). Usually these policies have downsides but I can't really think of any.

This kind of behaviour is common among banks as well, they use their dinosaur status when it comes to things that are bad for their business, but can be very progressive on the other end of things. For example, to move loans from one bank to another you need some documents (here in Sweden at least) to be handed to the other bank. I had to first wait in the support, then ask politely to get these documents. They told me that they would snail mail them to me immediately, but after two weeks I called them again, then they said sorry and sent me a PDF instead proving that they could have done this immediately...

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

#29

Post by jpalawaga »

The US government needs actual anti spam laws.

In Canada, it’s not legal to start sending someone emails because you happened across their email, purchased a list, or someone bought something from your square store. Marketing emails must have express consent, and the consent is not transferable.

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

#30

Post by sandworm101 »

I'd bet good money that any new rule will not apply to political-related spam. Unsubscribing from a political party's various fundraising schemes will no doubt remain next to impossible. We can complain about "dark money" all day, but how many of the superpac schemes we setup simply to avoid the inevitable spam/marketing associated with political donations?
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