In a world full of spam, and then you read this

wipasoda@lemmy.dbzer0.com to Mildly Infuriating@lemmy.world – 267 points –

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39

Report as spam and unsubscribe. If they send you more emails they are in violation of the law for the canned spam act.

That last part doesn't sound right but I wish it did.

Why doesn't it sound right? They are required by law to both have an unsubscribe button and to honor you opting out.

https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business

Because it sounds like a stupid joke about a can of spam i assume

It can be both real and a stupid pun. 😀

Once a company wouldn't stop emailing me despite unsubscribing. I sent them multiple emails with no response.

Then I heard that if enough people mark a sender as spam, Google starts automatically considering them spam for everyone. I emailed them to let them know this, and told them if they didn't remove me, I would mark them as spam which would affect them majorly.

They replied to my email within minutes and told me I was unsubscribed and would never receive another email from them lmao

Why would you issue a warning to a spammer instead of using the tools as intended, and just marking it as spam anyway? It clearly was. All you did here was pass the buck to someone else now.

I did both, but I wanted my email removed from their system. I hate my spam box being filled up if I can help it.

Understandable. I really doubt emails actually get removed from systems they get sold at that point and kept in the database that's not actively used.

Some email systems now won't mark things as spam. They'll have a popup window asking if you want them to help you unsubscribe from the shit. I about blew it when I saw that.

Ive seen email systems with that, I've never seen an email system use that as a substitute for a Spam or junk flag however, I think maybe either you're confused or have a really odd mail client

Gmail does it. Emails from mailing lists often have a header that specifies an email address you can email to unsubscribe (you just need to send an empty email with a subject of "unsubscribe" to the address). Gmail detects this header and asks you if you want to unsubscribe instead of marking as spam. If you do, it sends the unsubscribe email for you.

It usually is a footer, not a header, in my personal experience, these companies don't want the word "unsibscribe" put in your head until they are done trying to reel you in with other things. It would be asinine to put it as a header.

Also, the unsibscribe feature in Gmail is not the same as reporting as junk/spam, which Gmail still allows as an option.

Unsubscribe option attempts to use the email address as you've already mentioned. The spam and junk flag automatically moves mail from those addresses into your junk folder. These are not the same things.

Sorry, I meant a header as in where the things like the subject line, servers it was sent via, etc. are stored. It's a part of the email that isn't user-visible. The unsubscribe email isn't visible to the user unless you view the raw source of the email, but email clients can use it.

I know marking as spam isn't the same as unsubscribing. Gmail is trying to suggest unsubscribing instead of marking as spam which is reasonable (why mark it as spam when you could just unsubscribe and never get it in the first place?)

You mark it as spam so that Google can add it to the metrics and stop allowing that account to spam everyone. If you just unsubscribe it only benefits you. If you flag it as spam it benefits everyone using the service.

Technically it's not considered spam if you opted in. Spam is unsolicited mail.

Technically there's no authority to determine if you ever did "opt in", so that is a moot point. I get spam all the time claiming I opted in, when I know I've not. Nothing in an email is a guarantee, to include statements that you wanted this email or agreed to be contacted.

Sounds like a joke to me? I do not get the infuriating part.

Maybe it's personal preference, but I absolutely DESPISE companies who put this sort of cutesy, look how fun we are, but also very passive aggressive, bullshit on their communications.

This goes beyond mildly infuriating for me.

I'm with you on that one. It feels like old people trying to be hip and modern, it doesn't feel genuine.

I have also never understood why a company would want to actively pressure you into letting them send you things you don't want. Isn't it just wasted bandwidth to blast emails to people who won't ever see or want them? So bizarre.

No, they figure eventually you’ll come around or be a future $ for them later.

In this case, they're literally threatening that if you unsubscribe, you will receive harassing texts forever. That goes a large step further than "Jeff the unicorn will be sad."

I guess its based on "unicorns doesn't exist".

No one will send texts even if you unsubscribe. Only kidding

If someone pissed me off enough, I used to enter their email address every time a website wanted me to sign up for a newsletter. And if they asked me for my name while doing so, I'd enter a little message/insult for that person.

Imagine if you broke up with someone or decided to stop being friend with them and they started acting like. Should be charged as stalking because "corporations are people too" so I can't see why legally that can't be the case.

I hate stuff like this, that thinks it's being "cute", or "cool", or "clever", or whatever as if the company and I have some sort of personal relationship and could just interact on this level. No, Ridiculous Company, you and I do not have any kind of relationship - and now we never will even try again for one, any time in the future. In fact, from now on every time I see your logo, I will remember your "cleverness" and imagine a room full of imposter marketers and imposter developers sitting in a plastic building full of foosball tables and needlessly-big vertical monitors being "clever" for each other while their stock goes further and further down the toilet.

Or is that just me?