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

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

#141

Post by AlexandrB »

pptr wrote: post #89
jmyeet wrote: post #6

This is what government is for. It's why I can't (and don't) take any libertarians seriously. You can't Yelp review your way into regulating society. It's just so naive and silly. I was reminded of this recenntly when I saw a "hack" on how to cancel your Planet Fitness membership. As many would know, these gyms make it incredibly hard to cancel a subscription. It's their entire business model. Anyway, the "hack" is t…

App stores solved this problem long ago without any help from the government.

No they didn't. At all. I can't unsubscribe to a wide variety things in an App Store. Indeed, one reason apps want to have control over their own payment processing is so they don't have to follow App Store rules for stuff like this. Moreover, App Stores are a bit of a local monopoly that has the power to dictate terms to their hosted apps. So the only way to solve this problem seems to be edicts from a controlling authority.

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

#142

Post by bredren »

dfxm12 wrote: post #34

It's nice when the government improves the quality of life for regular people at the expense of businesses who are using dark patterns. I'll be sure to remember this in November. Here's more info on the initiative: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...

The timing of this and other announcements is not by accident though.

Expect a handful of populist announcements leading up to some "October" surprise that has been in the works for some time. It will be most obvious when it is generally favorable and can proceed without the need for two-party agreement.

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

#143

Post by AShyFig »

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…

It's funny you mention PitViper, because they are by far the worst offender in my inbox. I've unsubscribed multiple times, I've marked as spam multiple times, yet somehow I still get the occasional marketing message in my Gmail inbox.

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

#144

Post by fsckboy »

dataflow wrote: post #119
eckesicle wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swedish legislation has it right here. You can unsubscribe by any means you prefer. Mail, email, phone call, a notice in your local newspaper, carrier pigeon. The choice is completely with the party who wishes to terminate the agreement. It incentivises companies to make it as simple as possible, because if they don’t the cost of manually handling requests coming in through all kinds of different channels quickly bec…

> Mail, email, phone call, a notice in your local newspaper, carrier pigeon. How would that even... work? Doesn't this obligate every company to read every local newspaper in every customer's area? And a customer who feels like a company a hard time could just put a notice in the paper and then collect money because the company obviously won't read every newspaper? Also, what about companies wanting to give customers…

"legal notice in a newspaper" is still very much a thing in common law jurisdictions, with a long history, see banns going way back https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/banns

if you change your name you need to put it in the newspaper, and https://futureofnewspapers.net/how-to-place-a-legal-notice-i...

There are many different types of legal ads, with different costs to advertise. The most common type of legal notice in New York is an LLC formation notice. The State of New York requires limited liability corporations to run an ad informing the public on the formation of the new corporation. There are also FCC, SLA liquor licenses, sidewalk cafe notices, name change notices, divorce notices (also known as dissolution of marriage notices), and probate notices.

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

#145

Post by atoav »

litenboll wrote: post #28

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…

I still recall a big reputable newspaper that was approaching students with free sample subscriptions to their newspaper. The sign up was super simple, to end the subscription you had to do the telephone equivalent of getting through a maze blindfolded while sacrificing your first born when the stars aligned right.

After that experience that news source is on my and many of my colleagues black lists. And we are the core demographic they would probably like to target.

Yeah.

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

#146

Post by o32845o234j »

One time, like a decade ago, I went through my inbox and clicked all the unsubscribe buttons from the previous month. The quantity of junk mail I got over the subsequent month exploded. I'm pretty sure the majority of the time you click an "unsubscribe" button, the person you're unsubscribing from sells your info to other companies with the "this is a real living person, they clicked on our button" label. I just put everything in spam now. I don't trust anyone.

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

#148

Post by cchi_co »

o32845o234j wrote: post #146

One time, like a decade ago, I went through my inbox and clicked all the unsubscribe buttons from the previous month. The quantity of junk mail I got over the subsequent month exploded. I'm pretty sure the majority of the time you click an "unsubscribe" button, the person you're unsubscribing from sells your info to other companies with the "this is a real living person, they clicked on our button" label. I just put…

[dead]

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

#149

Post by cchi_co »

hypeatei wrote: post #2

Nice. I also wish deleting accounts was easier so that you don't have to read support FAQs and eventually find the email to send the deletion request to and wait days before being acknowledged and pestered for a "reason" you're leaving.

[dead]

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

#150

Post by dataflow »

fsckboy wrote: post #144
dataflow wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mail, email, phone call, a notice in your local newspaper, carrier pigeon. How would that even... work? Doesn't this obligate every company to read every local newspaper in every customer's area? And a customer who feels like a company a hard time could just put a notice in the paper and then collect money because the company obviously won't read every newspaper? Also, what about companies wanting to give customers…

"legal notice in a newspaper" is still very much a thing in common law jurisdictions, with a long history, see banns going way back https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/banns if you change your name you need to put it in the newspaper, and https://futureofnewspapers.net/how-to-place-a-legal-notice-i... There are many different types of legal ads, with different costs to advertise. The most common type of legal notice in Ne…

I am well aware of that, but there is a very huge and crucial difference between putting something in the newspaper for the sake of public dissemination vs. for the sake of making sure one specific known private entity gets the information. The only case I can recall off the top of my head for the latter is for things like service of judicial papers, and even then as a last resort, only when direct attempts to reach the party have failed. I am not aware of a single case where a party that is already reasonably reachable has to monitor public media for private communication.
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