unsubscribe

[Jim Hawkins]

Most - but not all - websites of commercial companies have an 'unsubscribe' button on their advertising postings. Even when there is one, it may be difficult to find, or have no detectable effect. Or it may invite you to confirm your email address (as if it didn't already know it) or invite some other response that allows other advertisers to know that their junkmail will get to a potential home. What, if anything, can be done to make advertisers:-

1. Have a prominent unsubscribe button on all their ads ?
2. Respond to its being pressed by immediately and without requiring further input, stopping sending you their ads ?

I wish I had a penny for every 'unsubscribe' button I've hit in the past year.

Jim Hawkins

[Tim+]

I had a problem with RCI (timeshare exchange company) who continued to send me emails after repeated attempts to cancel them (after I had cancelled my account with them).

When I threatened to bill them £100 admin charge for every unsolicited email after notifying them of this, suddenly they found that they *could* stop sending me emails.

Tim

[John Rumm]

Nothing...

[Adrian]

There are ads on the internet?

[David in Normandy]

I thought it was supposed to be a bad idea to hit 'unsubscribe' as it merely confirms that your email address is valid and hence it can be sold on to third parties or spammers.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Never respond. The responses are used to build lists of verified mailing addresses, for selling on. Sometimes the "product" advertised in the original email is just made up, for the sole purpose of collecting the unsubscribe confirmations that the person does read mails sent to that address.

Use junk mail and/or auto delete filters in your mail client so you never see them again.

[Tim Watts]

On Sunday 17 November 2013 19:21 David in Normandy wrote in uk.d-i-y:

The best answer I have to date is "throwawy" addresses.

1) get a Gmail account, eg [e-mail]

2) When dealing with company "widget", give them an email of the form: fred+ [e-mail]

Now you can

a) See who sold/lost your email address;

b) Stick a rule on gmail to drop their crappy spam.

One thing to note - for some reason some of the weeners who code webpages seem to think "+" is not a valid part of the localpart of an address. It is. I checked the RFCs. However this matters less as you can still bit it with a gmail rule.

[JoeJoe]

In Israel, by law, any commercial entity must stop all communication of this type at the first time of asking. The penalty is the equivalent of £200 PER COMMUNICATION (i.e. email or txt).

It is common for large organisations to be taken to court and be fined accordingly.

If only we had this here...

[Jim K]

If it's still common for them to be taken to court then it ain't working is it?

Jim K

[John Rumm]

Not only that, an interesting anticompetitive angle presents as well. Just keep emailing "on behalf" of one of your competitors, and let them cop all the flak ;-)

[Tim+]

But you can sue them here if you follow the correct proceedure.

Make sure that you've followed the unsubscribe proceedure Advise the other party of penalty charges for dealing with subsequent unsolicited emails If they continue to spam you send invoice Give reasonable time for payment Take them to court if they don't pay.

Of course this will only work for *real* companies sending out *real* spam. Not for all the penis enlargement messages coming from unidentifiable sources.

Tim

[Lobster]

[e-mail] (Andrew Gabriel) grunted in news:l6b5i6$4p4$1 @dont-email.me:

That's undoubtedly the best advice for genuine unsolicited junk mail. Though, what a lot of people refer to as 'spam' is actually promotional email sent by companies they've had dealings with, ie, they've bought something off the internet in the past and then get sent junk mail. ISTR they are allowed to do that without necessarily asking? If I get those, I always do use the 'unsubscribe' button, and it does work, without exception as far as I can remember.

[Lobster]

[e-mail] (Andrew Gabriel) grunted in news:l6b5i6$4p4$1 @dont-email.me:

That's undoubtedly the best advice for genuine unsolicited junk mail. Though, what a lot of people refer to as 'spam' is actually promotional email sent by companies they've had dealings with, ie, they've bought something off the internet in the past and then get sent junk mail. ISTR they are allowed to do that without necessarily asking? If I get those, I always do use the 'unsubscribe' button, and it does work, without exception as far as I can remember.

[Tim+]

Correct. The only time it didn't for me the threat of charging them for dealing with their emails did work.

Tim

[fred]

In article , Lobster writes

They might like you to think that they can spam you until you unsubscribe but they are required to give you the choice at the time of ordering and take notice of it.

Something that Crucial have 'forgotten' with me a number of time and which I'm about to get cross/get even about.

[Fredxxx]

I use a unique email address for each company. That way I can tell who has given my email address away.

As a result I get very little junkmail, or should I say I have a few email addresses that get deleted immediately!

[Bob Eager]

+1