Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing

#191

Post by arielm » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #80

arielm wrote: post #74

As someone who’s responsible for sending emails, all of the comments about “marking it as spam is easier than unsubscribing” really make me cringe. For several reasons: 1. If you subscribe to a list then please please please take the time to locate the very clearly marked unsubscribe link, or use the one that gmail or your other email client shows. I spend a lot of time making sure it’s suuuper easy to unsubscribe. 2…

>>> please please please take the time to locate the very clearly marked unsubscribe link You mean the one word link in font 6 hidden maybe somewhere at the bottom of the email if it's there at all? I have never seen an easy clearly marked unsubscribe in my life. When at look at my friends and parents who are not as computer savvy and often don't see things put in front of them, there is no way they would ever manage…

Mine are 100% clear, look like a link, and aren’t hidden.

Punish those who abuse it, not everyone. That’s all I’m saying.

Re: Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing

#192

Post by arielm » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

nikanj wrote: post #85

arielm wrote: post #74

As someone who’s responsible for sending emails, all of the comments about “marking it as spam is easier than unsubscribing” really make me cringe. For several reasons: 1. If you subscribe to a list then please please please take the time to locate the very clearly marked unsubscribe link, or use the one that gmail or your other email client shows. I spend a lot of time making sure it’s suuuper easy to unsubscribe. 2…

3. This is not an ad hominem, and I'm sure you're part of the 1%, but 99% of newsletters I receive are spam that I never wanted in the first place. Companies employ a tremendous range of dark patterns to get my consent for email, then flood me with spam. Time after time I have unsubscribed from the "best products of the week"-newsletter, just to receive a "weekly product highlights"-newsletter the next day. According…

The impact of you clicking spam is exponentially worse than you expect.

I said please three times because laziness on your part is really really bad for us who do it right.

Re: Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing

#193

Post by arielm » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

coddle-hark wrote: post #107

arielm wrote: post #74

As someone who’s responsible for sending emails, all of the comments about “marking it as spam is easier than unsubscribing” really make me cringe. For several reasons: 1. If you subscribe to a list then please please please take the time to locate the very clearly marked unsubscribe link, or use the one that gmail or your other email client shows. I spend a lot of time making sure it’s suuuper easy to unsubscribe. 2…

> 1. If you subscribe to a list then please please please take the time to locate the very clearly marked unsubscribe link, or use the one that gmail or your other email client shows. Teaching people to click unsubscribe links in spam emails is horrible security practice. I know you said “if you subscribed to a list” but it’s hard for me to verify that the sender of the email is the original company I subscribed to.

I don’t understand this argument at all.

You mean to say you signed up for a service or subscribed to a newsletter, then see an email from the service or newsletter and don’t know if it’s really that company/person?

Did you check the “to”? Do you look at the url of the unsubscribe link? (Harder when click tracking is on, I know)

And you would rather hurt that company or person because you don’t feel like taking the time?

This makes no sense to me, and I hope I’m not in the minority here.

Re: Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing

#194

Post by arielm » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

laurent123456 wrote: post #96

arielm wrote: post #74

As someone who’s responsible for sending emails, all of the comments about “marking it as spam is easier than unsubscribing” really make me cringe. For several reasons: 1. If you subscribe to a list then please please please take the time to locate the very clearly marked unsubscribe link, or use the one that gmail or your other email client shows. I spend a lot of time making sure it’s suuuper easy to unsubscribe. 2…

No, if you send an unwanted email people have no obligation to ensure your company preserves a good spam rating, and are free to do whatever they want to do with your email. The good news is that if you improve your process and send less unwanted emails, they'll be less flagged as spam and you'll keep a good spam rating. The system works basically.

Buuut, it doesn’t.

The system that you’re talking about is heavily weighted towards sending more stuff to spam than not.

Keeping a good spam rating is an extreme challenge for legit senders, especially when so many people click the spam button for reasons that have to do with laziness and carelessness.

Re: Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing

#195

Post by arielm » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

r1ch wrote: post #101

arielm wrote: post #74

As someone who’s responsible for sending emails, all of the comments about “marking it as spam is easier than unsubscribing” really make me cringe. For several reasons: 1. If you subscribe to a list then please please please take the time to locate the very clearly marked unsubscribe link, or use the one that gmail or your other email client shows. I spend a lot of time making sure it’s suuuper easy to unsubscribe. 2…

I'm on several mailing lists from US companies that use Cloudflare country filters or similar technologies to block non-US traffic to their sites. So since moving out of the US I have no way of unsubscribing and no way of contacting them, so they all get reported as spam. Keep this in mind if you run a list and are ever tempted to mass block traffic from your site.

Interesting!

We don’t do any of that, but that’s also something I’ve never thought about.

Can’t you email them?

Re: Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing

#196

Post by arielm » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 5:40 PM UTC

patja wrote: post #178

arielm wrote: post #74

As someone who’s responsible for sending emails, all of the comments about “marking it as spam is easier than unsubscribing” really make me cringe. For several reasons: 1. If you subscribe to a list then please please please take the time to locate the very clearly marked unsubscribe link, or use the one that gmail or your other email client shows. I spend a lot of time making sure it’s suuuper easy to unsubscribe. 2…

When I started teaching and my school email address was published on the school's website, I discovered the hell that is the ed-tech marketing machine. 90% of the spam I get from these sources, which are usually individual sales reps of medium to large companies, lack any unsubscribe link whatsoever. And these are firms with which I have zero relationship or transaction history.

Now, that’s 100% spam.

I’m not talking about those at all. Nor the ones where you sign up for one thing and then their “sister company” starts sending you email.

Re: Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing

#197

Post by codecutter » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

eloisant wrote: post #36

jopsen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean it gets the spammer blacklisted so they risk being unable to contact me. I've actually pinged a couple of services to let them know that spamming me is a security vulnerability, because they loose their ability to contact me.

The thing is you'll be the one inconvenienced. Let's say you often buy on Amazon (or any other online shop), they send you a newsletter. If you mark it as spam instead of unsubscribing, you could be losing some of their emails you'd want to see (order confirmation, response to a message you sent them, etc).

I have simple solution for that. If the newsletter doesn't stop and keeps coming, I would just cancel my email address amzn1@mydomain and open another one amzn2@mydomain. If the spam persists, I just move business elsewhere. As simple as that.

Re: Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing

#198

Post by arielm » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

necovek wrote: post #150

arielm wrote: post #74

As someone who’s responsible for sending emails, all of the comments about “marking it as spam is easier than unsubscribing” really make me cringe. For several reasons: 1. If you subscribe to a list then please please please take the time to locate the very clearly marked unsubscribe link, or use the one that gmail or your other email client shows. I spend a lot of time making sure it’s suuuper easy to unsubscribe. 2…

The problem is the one of scale and time waste: you are asking recipients to decide whether your email is mass-spam, commercial unsolicited email (also spam), something they subscribed to using a dark pattern (prechecked checkbox), something they subscribed to on purpose (and how long ago). To top it all off, some use those unsubscribe links or embedded images to track and confirm how real a recipient is. And many an…

Sad, but not untrue.

I appreciate the pragmatism here!

Do you know of any articles or useful content around this?

Re: Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing

#199

Post by arielm » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 5:43 PM UTC

_jstreet wrote: post #84

arielm wrote: post #74

As someone who’s responsible for sending emails, all of the comments about “marking it as spam is easier than unsubscribing” really make me cringe. For several reasons: 1. If you subscribe to a list then please please please take the time to locate the very clearly marked unsubscribe link, or use the one that gmail or your other email client shows. I spend a lot of time making sure it’s suuuper easy to unsubscribe. 2…

So, I should navigate to an external webpage (which can include other forms of tracking) to unsubscribe from an email that was unsolicited? Personally, I'd rather just flag it as junk/spam.

Again, I’m talking about something you signed up for/subscribed to.

Random emails are... random.

Re: Show HN: Please-unsubscribe.com – fwd emails to unsubscribe from marketing

#200

Post by arielm » Sat, Nov 07, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

graeme wrote: post #92

arielm wrote: post #74

As someone who’s responsible for sending emails, all of the comments about “marking it as spam is easier than unsubscribing” really make me cringe. For several reasons: 1. If you subscribe to a list then please please please take the time to locate the very clearly marked unsubscribe link, or use the one that gmail or your other email client shows. I spend a lot of time making sure it’s suuuper easy to unsubscribe. 2…

> Now, if you can’t unsubscribe (because there’s no link, it’s broken, or simply doesn’t actually unsubscribe), and this is a legit company, please please please let them know. I mostly agree with you, but this point only works if the company is contactable. There are some companies sending stuff from no reply addresses. Those I just spam. At that scale companies need to be testing, if they’ve left no way to be reach…

Companies who don’t make it very easy to get in touch are just hurting themselves. Agreed there.

I send with my name on it, reply to everyone who hits the reply button, and have a live chat (manned by humans) as well as a contact us form.

If someone can’t get in touch with me after all of that... That’s a different problem.