Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Preventing Unsubscribes in Forwarded Emails

litmus.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 85 posts

Re: Preventing Unsubscribes in Forwarded Emails

#21

Post by ceejayoz »

milkshakes wrote: post #9
alxndresp wrote: post #3

Wouldn't requiring inputting your email address and then pressing an ubsubscribe button work? That way when the forwarded user tries to unsubscribe, they know they aren't subscribed.

This is possibly in violation of CAN-SPAM: 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. [1] [1] http://business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-complia...

I think that's an overly narrow interpretation of "visiting a single page". I've seen very prominent providers who've definitely been around long enough to know the legalities (the hard way) use the "enter your e-mail address" approach.

Re: Preventing Unsubscribes in Forwarded Emails

#22

Post by mnutt »

raldi wrote: post #15
ComputerGuru wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the linked article. Email clients wrap the contents of forwarded messages in a , you just have to use CSS rules to hide the contents of a "blockquote yourfooterclasss" while otherwise showing yourfooterclass by default. EDIT I actually meant "read the article linked from the linked article" — I too spent a good minute there trying to find out their solution.

I read the article, and the only mention of blockquotes was in the CSS / HTML itself. I don't see any mention in the article about how it works. Still, thanks for the explanation. Does every mail client do this (like, due to an RFC) or just the popular ones?

It varies between mail clients, but they generally put the forwarded part of the message in either a blockquote or a div with a class that can be targeted. It's how the vertical blue line is produced for the quoted portion.

Re: Preventing Unsubscribes in Forwarded Emails

#23

Post by andrewreds »

jlgreco wrote: post #7
carlsednaoui wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good idea, but I feel that this places a burden on the subscribed user that wishes to unsubscribe.

Particularly when the subscribed user has several email accounts that all forward to another. It is a pain in the ass to click back and figure out exactly which address something came from.

Would this really be a problem?

If you have a look at the article, linked from the article, they are hiding the un-subscribe link when the link is inside quotes.

For me, the emails that get forwarded to different accounts (due to email rules), don't have quotes, so the link will show. But pressing the forward button will put quotes around the entire email, so the link won't be shown.

In saying that, there are probably some email setup out there, that doesn't work like mine, and just happens to wrap every email that it displays in quotes...

Re: Preventing Unsubscribes in Forwarded Emails

#24

Post by jonemo »

After reading the linked article and thinking WTF-hows-that-supposed-to-work, then reading the linked article, and reading the linked article again, I think I found the big caveat: It relies on unstandardized undocumented behavior of some email clients. Specifically, it doesn't work in Gmail.

But the problem actually seems real, makes me glad that I am not an email marketer. If you provide a one-click unsubscribe to your users, you don't want them to give somebody else that link. Reading through this HN thread, I see two and a half other solutions mentioned:

(1a) Require users to enter their email address on unsubscribe. I hate that one because frequently it's really hard to figure out at which of my email addresses the message first arrived.

(1b) Require users to confirm the unsubscribe The better version of the unsubscribe forms from alternative (1) have the email address pre-filled, which wouldn't stop someone who knows what they are doing from unsubscribing others. But it gives those unsubscribing others unintentionally a hint about how they ended up with that message.

(2) Send an email confirmation after unsubscribe This way you can just re-subscribe if one of your friends unsubscribed you. Looks like some people in the discussion below like this approach, others hate it.

If I had to pick, I'd probably chose (2) because that's the only way of making sure an accidentally unsubscribed user notices what happened.

Re: Preventing Unsubscribes in Forwarded Emails

#25

Post by gkoberger »

Article aside, it's much better to have a one-click unsubscribe that just works.

It's an edge case that someone will unsubscribe from someone else's mailing list or click it by mistake, so making every single person (99% who are unsubscribing on purpose) confirm, log in, enter their address or receive a confirmation is an infuriating waste of time.

The best way to mitigate this is a simple "You unsubscribed whatever@gmail.com", with a little undo button in case it was a mistake.

And if all this still goes wrong... if the person liked your newsletter enough, they'll figure out what happened when they stop getting it.

(Side note: I've really been hoping GMail and other clients would accept a URL in email headers that would handle unsubscribe, so they could add a button to the UI. I know that's oversimplifying everything, but it would significantly improve the email experience.)

Re: Preventing Unsubscribes in Forwarded Emails

#26

Post by danabramov »

revorad wrote: post #16
jacalata wrote: post #14

If you want to take this even further, here are a couple of other suggestions: Require confirmation instead of one-click unsubscribe** Even better - allow unsubscribes by having the user take a photo of themself next to a handwritten sign with today's date, their email address and a request to be unsubscribed. Then you know it wasn't an accident!

You forgot 2-factor auth.

And a passport, please.

Re: Preventing Unsubscribes in Forwarded Emails

#27

Post by TillE »

ceejayoz wrote: post #12
chimeracoder wrote: post #5

Honestly, I just like having them email me when I've unsubscribed. That way, if somebody else does it, I know because I receive a notification. If I'm unsubscribing from a spammy newsletter, I don't mind them sending exactly one "unsubscribe confirmation" email immediately that I can then have in my records later on in case I forget whether or not (or when) I unsubscribed.

That actually drives me nuts about Mailchimp in particular, and I've seen a good number of folks grouse about it on Twitter. Interesting to see someone having the complete opposite opinion about them.

The only such notices I've been truly annoyed by are the ones that say "now please wait 6-8 weeks for your unsubscribe request to be processed".

Otherwise, it's really a very small thing to deal with. And it can be nice to have that email in your archive for future reference, like if they start spamming you again.

Re: Preventing Unsubscribes in Forwarded Emails

#29

Post by adnrw »

gkoberger wrote: post #25

Article aside, it's much better to have a one-click unsubscribe that just works. It's an edge case that someone will unsubscribe from someone else's mailing list or click it by mistake, so making every single person (99% who are unsubscribing on purpose) confirm, log in, enter their address or receive a confirmation is an infuriating waste of time. The best way to mitigate this is a simple "You unsubscribed whatever@…

> And if all this still goes wrong... if the person liked your newsletter enough, they'll figure out what happened when they stop getting it.

Not necessarily, unfortunately. As an example, take emails advertising pre-sale tickets to events, sent to people who have signed up specifically to have access to buy tickets before the general public.

If their friend is able to unsubscribe them, they don't get the email and miss the pre-sale access. Even if they do realise and resubscribe, there's a good chance they'll have missed the pre-sale period anyway (which only lasts a few days).

That's one of many examples that make "not to worry they'll just resubscribe" not quite work properly.

> The best way to mitigate this is a simple "You unsubscribed whatever@gmail.com", with a little undo button in case it was a mistake.

In addition to this, it's worth putting "This email was sent to whatever@gmail.com, unsubscribe by clicking here" in the email.

Re: Preventing Unsubscribes in Forwarded Emails

#30

Post by B-Con »

gkoberger wrote: post #25

Article aside, it's much better to have a one-click unsubscribe that just works. It's an edge case that someone will unsubscribe from someone else's mailing list or click it by mistake, so making every single person (99% who are unsubscribing on purpose) confirm, log in, enter their address or receive a confirmation is an infuriating waste of time. The best way to mitigate this is a simple "You unsubscribed whatever@…

What if it's malicious?

Eg, "I hate your political ideology. I'll unsubscribe you from the site you forwarded me an article from."

I'm sure that kind of threat is minimal and easily corrected, but the OP's suggestion of hiding it somewhat addresses that. It doesn't eliminate the threat of course, but it doesn't put it under their nose.

Post reply on HN