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Comment by byoung2 | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone know how the unsubscribe feature works? Does it follow the unsubscribe link in the email, or does it use some other mechanism?

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I believe it uses a header the sender includes with the email

http://www.list-unsubscribe.com/

Cool. I doubt those intrusive marketing emails will ever include that header though.

it's a neat feature for legit websites not wanting to end up on spam filters, though

Also a cool way for a spammer to verify if somebody is receiving those mails.

True, but that's a low- to no-value lede; you're not very likely to sell to someone that's actively trying to avoid you.

Who cares if they are receiving them and never seeing them because they are blocked?

Someone who easily can send other mails to the now verified address from somewhere else?

What I don't understand (possibly noob question), is the scenario where I get spam and I click on "Report spam" to be prompted with "Unsubscribe and report spam".

I'd never subscribed to it so why am I asked whether I would like to "Unsubscribe". Is it that the spammers got hold of my email from somewhere and "Subscribed" me automatically?

Shouldn't "Report spam" implicitly imply that it's not a subscription?

People use the Report Spam button on things that they explicitly signed up for all the time, and Gmail has adjusted its behavior to match how users use it rather than try to persuade them to instead do the right thing.

Interesting. Isn't there an information loss since now they would have to infer the motive to decide whether to blacklist the sender?

Yes. I end up with loads of useful emails in the Spam folder. Mostly it's stuff like shipping and billing notifications. I check the Spam folder daily, now, since so much useful mail ends up there.

That's right. All too often I've subscribed to a mailing list expecting the odd email now and again only to suffer a deluge of totally irrelevant and annoying 'updates' on an almost daily basis.

The worst offenders also make it difficult to unsubscribe. Hence, the report spam option.

Opt-out lists are a big issue.

A checkbox hidden somewhere that's enabled by default doesn't mean that "I have subscribed" to the mailing list, both in the common sense and also is prohibited in many legal jurisdictions (not USA, AFAIK), leaving a default checkbox simply doesn't count as obtaining consent, it is a well known 'dark UI pattern' that even the consumer protection laws have understood and explicitly implemented.

Such messages are just another kind of spam, and the right thing to prevent this, naturally, is to block the sender as a spammer. Underneath there is somewhat proper a mailing list that supports unsubscription, so an unsubscribe message can and should also be sent, but it doesn't change the fact that all the subscribers were added without their informed consent - if you built a system with opt-in by default, then you yourself built a system where it is impossible to say that you actually want to subscribe, the only provided checkbox then represents a choice between the default (no informed consent) and an explicit refusal of consent.

I'm the author of a product and in some situation I have subscribed former users to a one-off email. It's gray area since it was to notify them about a major release/change, it was written in my T&C and sign up form, but honestly it would feel legitimate if they marked my email as undesired/spam.

Out of 900 recipients, 1 marked it as spam, 18 unsubscribed. I believe people are very tolerant and they could use "spam & blame" a lot more.

I think your situation is different; you're not subscribing them to a newsletter. Your communication is reasonable for a typical business relationship. (and is protected under CAN-SPAM)

"The right thing".

The right thing is to not register me to these spam mailing lists in the first place. I did not register, ergo they are spam, and should be blocked from spamming other people. "Report spam" is exactly the correct behavior I intended when I clicked on it.

The point is people click spam even on things they did register for.

I'd assume so. The CAN-SPAM[0] act mandates that the unsubscribe link must not contain any authorization, e.g., you click the link and you're immediately unsubscribed. This is just trading a click in one location for a click in another, but it's a neat feature to not search through the entire email to try to find the unsubscribe link.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003#Unsubscri...

CAN-SPAM does not actually require one-click unsubscribe, but many senders include it anyway.

From the primary source: "Give a return email address or another easy Internet-based way to allow people to communicate their choice [to opt-out] to you. You may create a menu to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to stop all commercial messages from you. "

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can...

You're both kind of right. A one-click unsubscribe is not required, but if you do use a web link for unsubscribe, the form can't require the user to enter any information beyond their email address. (Unsubscribe forms that require you to login are probably violating this law.)

"Reply with the word REMOVE in the subject" is also a CAN-SPAM complaint unsubscribe method, though.

>If you do use a web link for unsubscribe, the form can't require the user to enter any information beyond their email address.

I don't get that from my reading of the actual law or FTC guidance. Can you explain how you came to your conclusion?

Full text of CAN-SPAM: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-108s877enr/pdf/BILLS-108s...

It's actually surprisingly difficult to find original, authoritative sources on what the law requires. You linked to the full text of the bill Congress passed, but that left all the implementation details up to the FTC. The rule I'm talking about was not in the original bill or in the original set of FTC rules, but was added later by the FTC in 2008.

From 16 CFR 316.5:

  > Neither a sender nor any person act-
  > ing on behalf of a sender may require 
  > that any recipient pay any fee, provide 
  > any information other than the recipi-
  > ent’s electronic mail address and opt- 
  > out preferences, or take any other 
  > steps except sending a reply electronic 
  > mail message or visiting a single Inter-
  > net Web page, in order to [...]

And you can view that from here: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/CFR-2011-title16-vol1/CFR-2...

(The FTC also mentions it in their guidance for businesses: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can... under bullet #6)

It's worth noting on top of what others have said, Gmail (and assume most others too) will only display the unsubscribe button from whitelisted mail servers, as far as I'm aware.

The reasoning being that it could be used by spammers to confirm an email address is real/valid after a user attempts to unsubscribe at which point they could sign them up to more spam. So don't expect your own emails to show the button by just adding the List-Unsubscribe header, unless you're using something like Amazon SES.

This has been oft-repeated conventional wisdom from years, but I think we're giving most spammers way too much credit.

I run several mail servers, and addresses that have not existed for well over a decade, and always give 5XX responses, still get spam.

As long as spam is profitable, because it pushes all negative externalities off to someone else, it is not worth a spammer's time to cull their lists.

I simply do not see this happening.

The post says the Unsubscribe feature is coming to Android, but will it be also available in regular Gmail?

That's where it started. Open a marketing message, look at the from line. If they're implementing it, you'll see "Marketer name" <marketer@emailaddress.com> Unsubscribe

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