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Hey developers, stop forcing me to login to unsubscribe

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Re: Hey developers, stop forcing me to login to unsubscribe

#111

Post by dredmorbius »

Another side effect of such requirements: it means that even white-hat ops at the service itself cannot address the issue sanely.

At multiple gigs, at multiple sites, a significant amount of bounced mail consists of messages sent to long-term undeliverable addresses (in many cases: to domains which no longer exist, and/or have been tranferred, and/or the owning company has gone out of business: think Enron, AT&T's discontinued ISP network, Lehmann Brothers, etc.).

Even if I'd _wanted_ to create rules or write scripts to automatically process the messages, the login requirements generally meant that wasn't possible. Instead, these comprised both a significant amount of outbound mail queues and nondelivery notifications, potentially masking more serious issues (you've got to come to understand what notifications are effectively part of background noise vs. not).

Oh, and some of those domains still exist in some regards (e.g., there's a skeleton crew at Lehman winding down the firm), so you can't just blindly select entire domains.

File under continuing hassles of a conscientious admin's job.

Re: Hey developers, stop forcing me to login to unsubscribe

#112

Post by dredmorbius »

ruswick wrote: post #60

This is a deal-breaker for me, and I immediately delete my account on any service that attempts this type of bullshit. If a service makes me log in to unsubscribe from their spam, they can be assured that it will be the last time I ever log into their service.

It's why my initial signup to virtually anything is via a mailinator.com address (or alternate domain of theirs).

Abuse a privilege? Lose it.

Re: Hey developers, stop forcing me to login to unsubscribe

#115

Post by icecreampain »

evadne wrote: post #4

Oh, easy, I just mark all emails as spam.

At my old job I made the mail server's spamassassin globally trash ALL emails from Linkedin, no matter the content.

Nobody ever complained, which kinda goes to show exactly how spammy LI is.

Re: Hey developers, stop forcing me to login to unsubscribe

#116

Post by lutusp »

> There's nothing more annoying than clicking that 'unsubscribe' link at the bottom of your email only to be asked to login first.

But there's a reason, and to understand the reason, you need to understand something about the law.

You want to be taken off the mailing list of a company that technically is spamming you, violating the law. But if the company can get you to sign in first, you technically become a customer, and they can then spam you endlessly and legally.

But -- a company that requires you to sign in, in order to opt out, is breaking the law. The Can-Spam Act requires opt-out to be readily available and simple (see below). On that basis, sites that require signups to opt out are engaged in a criminal conspiracy.

From the law: "You must honor a recipient’s opt-out request within 10 business days. You can’t charge a fee, require the recipient to give you any personally identifying information beyond an email address, or make the recipient take any step other than sending a reply email or visiting a single page on an Internet website as a condition for honoring an opt-out request."

-- http://www.business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-com...

They're breaking the law. They are criminals.

Re: Hey developers, stop forcing me to login to unsubscribe

#117

Post by lutusp »

hbien wrote: post #18
morganb180 wrote: post #15

Edit: I missed the transactional part here. Transactional emails are excluded from CAN-SPAM. There's a test to figure out which is which: http://www.the-dma.org/press/PrimaryPurposeFactSheet.pdf It's shitty UX regardless of whether it's a violation of law, IMO. Original: It's a violation of CAN-SPAM law to put unsubscribe behind a login process. Asking for a password violates the requirement that no additional PII ex…

I know this is true for mass marketing emails, but is it the same for transactional emails also?

> I know this is true for mass marketing emails, but is it the same for transactional emails also?

That depends -- have you ever signed up with the sender? If so, you are asking to be spammed. When a company requires a signup, they are breaking the law, therefore you must not sign up. By signing up, you make the spam legitimate.

If they send you an unsolicited e-mail, they are criminals. If they require a signup to opt out, they are criminals. But if you sign up, they aren't. That's why they want you to sign up.

Re: Hey developers, stop forcing me to login to unsubscribe

#119

Post by bitops »

sker wrote: post #21

Companies like LinkedIn are training users (at least me) to report as spam instead of unsubscribing because it's an exercise in futility to try to opt-out of their spam.

Why not just write an email filter to send all emails from them to the trash?

Re: Hey developers, stop forcing me to login to unsubscribe

#120

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

koudi wrote: post #28

This is really annoying. What I find more annoying is response like "We will process your request within 30 business days." (and after that period receive another spam). What could possibly take 30 business days to unsubscribe email? This is evil. I would also like to see some sort of standard - like email header with link, that would unsubscribe you. Outlook/thunderbird/etc could just show button (probably next to "…

Sounds like a misinterpretation of CAN-SPAM which says:

"Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your message. You must honor a recipient’s opt-out request within 10 business days."

which means the recipient gets 30 days (from receipt of each email) to opt out, the sender has 10 days to process the opt-out.

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