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FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

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Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#671

Post by ianmcgowan »

monksy wrote: post #456
justinpombrio wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsubscribe links are a fantastic regulation, but there is a workaround. I must have received at least a dozen emails from Brown after graduating despite unsubscribing to every email they sent. The trouble is they're endlessly creative about the lists they put you on. I'd get one email from "Alumni Connections" and then another from "Faculty Spotlight" and then another from "Global Outreach" and then another from "Ev…

So I'm getting these emails from the KamalaHarris campaign. They're signed by the domain as well. I've never given money to the organiation, I'm not connected with their party, I've never signed up for the campaign, or interacted with them. However, I'm constantly being put on their mailing list soliciting for donations. I've seen how the campaigns pass around email addresses without consent. (Mostly from ActBlue) So…

I have two rules in gmail - one deletes any email containing the word "unsubscribe" and the other any email with the word "democrat". I probably have missed some emails, but life has somehow gone on without them.

My friend group has mostly moved to texting or other messaging apps. Email is kind of like letters in the 90's..

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#672

Post by boomlinde »

inetknght wrote: post #378
vel0city wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what, people should only be able to email you if you've previously emailed them? How am I supposed to know who I'm allowed to email?

> So what, people should only be able to email you if you've previously emailed them? No, people should be able to email me as they would normally. I should be able to block senders, or entire domains. To use a direct example: if I decide that substack is shit because they subscribe people without consent (which is exactly true), then I should be able to block all things from substack and not just a single email addr…

When I contacted Substack about it they insisted that I can't be subscribed to a mailing list there unless I gave them my explicit consent.

Quickly going through their own documentation I found out that this is not true: Substack allows you to import CSV subscriber lists without the consent of each subscriber, ostensibly to allow painless migration of old mailing lists. That feature is of course abused, and they did nothing when I reported the abuse, presumably because spammers represent a large part of their business.

What a piece of shit company.

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#673

Post by rubyfan »

ksd482 wrote: post #324
justinpombrio wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsubscribe links are a fantastic regulation, but there is a workaround. I must have received at least a dozen emails from Brown after graduating despite unsubscribing to every email they sent. The trouble is they're endlessly creative about the lists they put you on. I'd get one email from "Alumni Connections" and then another from "Faculty Spotlight" and then another from "Global Outreach" and then another from "Ev…

What I have noticed companies do is resume emails after a year or so. They probably think people would forget about unsubscribing them after a year, and for the most part they are right. If I catch any of these email lists not respecting my unsubscribing, I immediately mark them as "spam". Gmail then doesn't send them to my inbox anymore. I don't think just one person marking them as spam hurts them, but at least I f…

I really like the hide my email feature in iCloud for this reason. I’ve had to burn an email after making a campaign donation this year. They email you and put you on a million lists but then they also share your email with every other campaign in the ticket. It’s obscene.

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#674

Post by HighGoldstein »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #657
justinpombrio wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsubscribe links are a fantastic regulation, but there is a workaround. I must have received at least a dozen emails from Brown after graduating despite unsubscribing to every email they sent. The trouble is they're endlessly creative about the lists they put you on. I'd get one email from "Alumni Connections" and then another from "Faculty Spotlight" and then another from "Global Outreach" and then another from "Ev…

This is illegal in Europe, since you can't add somebody to a list without their consent. As usual, I know it's trendy to say on HN the EU is killing innovation with all the regulations, and there is truth to that, but there is also great customer protection, which seems constantly violated in the US. So yes, in the US, companies can flourish, but it seems the consumers are second-class citizens compared to companies.…

If your "innovation" is at risk from consumer protection regulations I question whether it's a good innovation.

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#675

Post by everforward »

maccard wrote: post #418
inetknght wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is your experience? Reporting spam does not block the email from being received by my client -- it only blocks the mail from being seen in the inbox, but it still shows up in the spam box. I don't send mail that gets reported as spam in the first place. Or, if it does, then I haven't been meaningfully affected because I can still send and receive the email I want to.

I’m not sure what you expect to happen? > I don't send mail that gets reported as spam in the first place. I ran a newsletter where people had to opt in to receiving it. It was announce news for a video game. You only ended up on this list if you entered your email, clicked join list, and then clicked the link in the email we sent to you to confirm subscription. We had a big unsubscribe button at the very top of the…

I’m not accusing you of this, but I will mark things as spam even if I signed myself up if what they’re delivering is just garbage.

It’s usually not newsletters for me, but small niche companies who sell very specific things and feel a weird urge to have a weekly newsletter. It’s like all they sell is 2 models of guitar capo, but they still feel the need to send me weekly updates on I don’t even know what.

The kind of things where I not only don’t want the emails, but I want to register that I feel I was misled when I signed up.

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#676

Post by [deleted] »

HighGoldstein wrote: post #674
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is illegal in Europe, since you can't add somebody to a list without their consent. As usual, I know it's trendy to say on HN the EU is killing innovation with all the regulations, and there is truth to that, but there is also great customer protection, which seems constantly violated in the US. So yes, in the US, companies can flourish, but it seems the consumers are second-class citizens compared to companies.…

If your "innovation" is at risk from consumer protection regulations I question whether it's a good innovation.

[deleted]

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#677

Post by wonderwonder »

monksy wrote: post #456
justinpombrio wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsubscribe links are a fantastic regulation, but there is a workaround. I must have received at least a dozen emails from Brown after graduating despite unsubscribing to every email they sent. The trouble is they're endlessly creative about the lists they put you on. I'd get one email from "Alumni Connections" and then another from "Faculty Spotlight" and then another from "Global Outreach" and then another from "Ev…

So I'm getting these emails from the KamalaHarris campaign. They're signed by the domain as well. I've never given money to the organiation, I'm not connected with their party, I've never signed up for the campaign, or interacted with them. However, I'm constantly being put on their mailing list soliciting for donations. I've seen how the campaigns pass around email addresses without consent. (Mostly from ActBlue) So…

Same for me but with text messages. I made the mistake of making a contribution on act blue 8 years ago and now every election season I get hundreds of text messages asking for donations with the most ridiculous content ever. "Act now to unlock the ultra rare 400% match...". There is no way to get off the list. I click unsubscribe, half the time I get no automated response, I now just report it as junk but they just keep coming.

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#678

Post by adamtaylor_13 »

justinpombrio wrote: post #265
Uehreka wrote: post #190

When people try and say that regulating stuff like this is impossible, I often think about how unreasonably great the regulations around “Unsubscribe” links in emails are. There really seems to be no loophole or workaround despite there being huge incentive for there to be one. Every time I click an “Unsubscribe” link in an email (it seems like they’re forced to say “Unsubscribe” and not use weasel words to hide the…

Unsubscribe links are a fantastic regulation, but there is a workaround. I must have received at least a dozen emails from Brown after graduating despite unsubscribing to every email they sent. The trouble is they're endlessly creative about the lists they put you on. I'd get one email from "Alumni Connections" and then another from "Faculty Spotlight" and then another from "Global Outreach" and then another from "Ev…

Use the “spam” button on your email client.

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#679

Post by dccoolgai »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #655
dccoolgai wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may have misread "first and worst". Democrats eventually follow suit, but the cherry picked example of CA doesn't account for the partisan overrepresention of Republicans in gerrymandrered congressional districts. It's not even close on a national level. For Super PACs: again this is from Citizens United which was pushed by Republicans and confirmed by an activist Republican Supreme Court. They own that 100 perce…

> the cherry picked example of CA California by itself accounts for more than 10% of the electorate and it's not a cherry picked example, it's what generally happens when a state is under one-party control. I provided links for California and New York because they're the two largest blue states by population. > overrepresention of Republicans That is what tends to happen in ungerrymandered districts because of the po…

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/gerr...

"Nationally, extreme partisan bias in congressional maps gave Republicans a net 16 to 17 seat advantage for most of last decade. Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania alone — the three states with the worst gerrymanders in the last redistricting cycle — accounted for 7 to 10 extra Republican seats in the House."

Re: Citizens... I don't even know where to start. Read about the McCain-Feingold Act. It was in place for a decade when Citizens was decided and the only thing it prevented was billionaires and corporations spending unlimited amounts of money on electioneering. (Media companies love it: they get more spending on ads).

Before and after McCain-Feingold media companies by law aren't allowed to refuse any political ad - in fact, they have to offer them a slightly _below commercial market rate_! Weirdly, though, they are responsible for the _factual content_ of any ad they run. Election law is really interesting.

Re: FTC announces "click-to-cancel" rule making it easier to cancel subscriptions

#680

Post by lazide »

account42 wrote: post #662
photonthug wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Works great except for the gas company, electric and water company, phone company, airlines, cloud provider, os provider, and everyone else that mixes the 5% of legit business that you can’t afford to ignore or miss with the 95% of marketing content that you want to get rid of. Since it’s usually opaque how “mark as spam” and “block” actually works, and since the origin of the mailing lists can be reconfigured any ti…

Few companies are stupid enough to use the same sender or even domain for marketing and important transactional mail.

Utility companies are unfortunately exactly that kind of stupid though.
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