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No one-click unsubscribe? It's spam.

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Re: No one-click unsubscribe? It's spam.

#101

Post by polyfractal »

graue wrote: post #62
fleitz wrote: post #11

Having run a mailing list I can pretty much tell you that despite your best efforts to put the right headers in so Google can do their own unsub links, unsub at top and bottom, etc, that despite all this and being fully CAN-SPAM complaint that people will still write emails to your ISP claiming that your sending SPAM. I'm not sure why but usually it's academics who send these. Maybe people sign them up for mailing li…

> Maybe people sign them up for mailing lists b/c they are jerks or something Not possible if you have a confirm step. And you should have a confirm step.

You would be surprised. I've run several mailing lists for both technical and non-technical people.

Always, without fail, you will get someone that signs up, confirms and then mashes the spam button two emails later while sending you irate "HOW DID YOU GET MY EMAIL ADDRESS UNSUBSCRIBE ME OHGODWHATHAVEYOUDONE?!" emails.

It's remarkable, really.

Re: No one-click unsubscribe? It's spam.

#102

Post by polyfractal »

jordoh wrote: post #63

Even if you make it easy to unsubscribe (one click, no sign-in, prominent link), sending an email to any large number of people will still result in "mark as spam" being used on a surprisingly large percent of messages. Where I work, we send mail through Amazon SES, so we get digests of all the messages that have been marked as spam (stripped of identifying email headers). We see it used on (marketing) newsletters of…

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure you are correct. Most people don't realize that mashing the spam button not only moves the message to the Spam label, but also alerts the ISP and ESP which causes negative repercussions for everyone.

I'm fine with people hitting spam because something is legitimately spam. But hitting it because you are too lazy to click the Unsubscribe link is crappy. Or, more likely, because everyone thinks it's the same as the unsubscribe link.

I'll only spam something if A) there is no unsubscribe link or B) I keep getting emails after I unsubscribe.

Re: No one-click unsubscribe? It's spam.

#103

Post by shiftpgdn »

pyre wrote: post #80
mikle wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, how do you even prosecute it? Where the company is based? Where the web servers are based? Where the email servers are based? Where it was served? The email client's server location?

As long as the company does business in the US, you have enough of an argument to drag them into court over it. Whether or not that is worth your time (or will ultimately net you anything) is anyone's guess.

Can you actually drag a company into court over CANSPAM? I was under the impression it was FTC fines only.

Re: No one-click unsubscribe? It's spam.

#104

Post by Spoom »

darec1 wrote: post #87

Ah, if you can unsubscribe with one click, maybe even without logging in. What stops evil Bert over there from unsubscribing you? Sure, there might be some (session) token involved, but that could have been sniffed or brute-forced. Actually mailing lists do it right, have the subscriber confirm his action by clicking a link in a confirmation mail or such. I think that's called double confirmation.

If "evil Bert" has access to my inbox, the jig is up anyway.

Re: No one-click unsubscribe? It's spam.

#105

Post by graue »

polyfractal wrote: post #101
graue wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe people sign them up for mailing lists b/c they are jerks or something Not possible if you have a confirm step. And you should have a confirm step.

You would be surprised. I've run several mailing lists for both technical and non-technical people. Always, without fail, you will get someone that signs up, confirms and then mashes the spam button two emails later while sending you irate "HOW DID YOU GET MY EMAIL ADDRESS UNSUBSCRIBE ME OHGODWHATHAVEYOUDONE?!" emails. It's remarkable, really.

Well yes, forgetting that you signed up is still possible if there's a confirm step. Being signed up (maliciously or accidentally) by someone else, however, is the situation I was referring to and confirm steps exist specifically to prevent that.

Re: No one-click unsubscribe? It's spam.

#106

Post by xenophonf »

delackner wrote: post #90
BrianEatWorld wrote: post #86

I got stuck with marketing emails for my start-up and I take a bit of an issue with point one. How is it the sender's fault if you can't remember why you signed up for an email? As a matter of best practices, I do remind subscribers. However, it is also quite irritating to be marked as spam, when it was the user who signed up for my messages. By all means unsubscribe, but marking me as spam, especially because I use…

Just because your boss asked you to do something that many people HATE, doesn't make it better. People handing over their email address in exchange for user registration or to gain access to a trial version of your product are not interested in receiving sporadic advertising for the next N years. People are inundated by unwanted email every day, from companies that claim, like Dracula, "but you said I could come insi…

This. I'm so sick of receiving marketing emails from companies to whom I sent a one-time informational query, not to mention the marketing emails sent to addresses gleaned from public directories like Jigsaw (of which I am _not_ a member).

Re: No one-click unsubscribe? It's spam.

#107

Post by eli »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #103
pyre wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as the company does business in the US, you have enough of an argument to drag them into court over it. Whether or not that is worth your time (or will ultimately net you anything) is anyone's guess.

Can you actually drag a company into court over CANSPAM? I was under the impression it was FTC fines only.

Consumers can't really take any action on their own, but ISPs can. Microsoft has been pretty active in this regard. My understanding is they use this to file charges against John Doe spammers so that they can use court procedures to track down their actual identity. IANAL.

Re: No one-click unsubscribe? It's spam.

#108

Post by eli »

joonix wrote: post #97
xur17 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, that means I shouldn't have to login to my account to unsubscribe, correct? I find this annoying as I tend to click on the unsubscribe link from my phone, and not have the login details with me. I've seen several prominent companies that do this, including Mint earlier today.

Yes that is not permitted - they need to use encoded links in the email to identify you automatically upon click.

The links do not need to be encoded -- they are allowed to ask for your email address -- but they can't ask for much else. And definitely not a username/password.

Re: No one-click unsubscribe? It's spam.

#109

Post by e_proxus »

joonix wrote: post #97
xur17 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, that means I shouldn't have to login to my account to unsubscribe, correct? I find this annoying as I tend to click on the unsubscribe link from my phone, and not have the login details with me. I've seen several prominent companies that do this, including Mint earlier today.

Yes that is not permitted - they need to use encoded links in the email to identify you automatically upon click.

Funny, even big sites like LinkedIn break this. Is there some exception to some types of mail, like bulk mail received after signing up with a service?
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