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Comment by vaksel | Hacker News Reader

as long as you provide an unsubscribe link(and the people actually subscribed) it shouldn't matter what you do with an email list.

if you send them crap, they can always unsubscribe

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You're only considering one of the three parties; the spammer.

Party #2 is the spammee: "they can always unsubscribe" shows a callous and naive disregard for the depth of the problem. The spamee has incurred a small cost in time to deal with this particular spam; this may not seem much but soon multiplies; If the spammer is now dealing with tens of crap messages, on their mobile phone, during a ten minute lunch break, the spammers have just suceeded in breaking the spammee's email system. Completely.

Party #3 is the legimate email sender. Sending email is now so complicated that legimate mail users must delegate to ever more technically proficent third parties to deliver legitimate mail, and the deliverability of mail between consenting parties is compromised.

Whether or not they "subscribed" is irrelevant, due the number of ways people get "subscribed". What they actually wanted was the item they purchased online, or the service they are paying for, or whatever; not an inbox full of special offers.

Interestingly, this debate is about to blow up in a different area. The cost of access to the PSTN from disposable numbers is collapsing thanks to competition in the VOIP space, most PSTN terminals have zero filtering, and unlike email, the PSTN started being used for important stuff long before anyone started abusing it. Voice spam will be huge in 2011.

i recognize the legitimate concerns where you fill out a registration form/buy something, and they sign you up by default...but otherwise I don't see what the problem is.

If you give me your email to receive my newsletter, it's not spam if I send it to you.

Especially since it only takes 1 click to stop getting it.

I think the key point is that the recipients of these emails often haven't subscribed; they've been "discovered."

I've seen companies do this, I've been on the receiving end of this. Both suck.

Poking around for an unsubscribe link on an email I did not want to receive in the first place takes effort. Hitting the "Report spam" button takes none.

that unsubscribe link is always at the bottom

In a smaller font, I have to scroll to get to it, then scan to find out exactly where it is.

I did not ask for this email, and it is trying to sell me something. It is, by my definition, spam. Not only do I not owe the senders the courtesy of finding an unsubscribe button, I feel good hitting the "Mark as spam" button.

Well, a quick review of my Inbox suggests that you are wrong on that point.

Your (or my) definition of "shouldn't matter" is not at issue. The two primary above-board email distribution services (MailChimp and Campaign Monitor) will boot you to the curb if you go beyond 1% unsubscribes. I'm stating fact, not opinion.

Therefore, the issue is that if you serve them anything more than a few months after you get their email address, they are much more likely to unsubscribe. And on those services, unsubscribes count against your standing.

The two primary above-board email distribution services (MailChimp and Campaign Monitor) will boot you to the curb if you go beyond 1% unsubscribes. I'm stating fact, not opinion.

I call bullshit. A 1% unsub rate at MailChimp triggers a warning but not even a manual review, let alone "kicking you to the curb". You can see them talk about it more in the comments on this post:

http://www.mailchimp.com/blog/how-to-reactivate-inactive-sub...

Thanks for the insanely information-dense link, Ryan.

I assure you that no bullshit was intended; the stuff in the comments directly contradicts both the account suspension emails received and the contents of the MailChimp FAQ.

A big part of the reason I posted this was to get more background information, and today you were that special someone.

Can you post something a little more specific to your point, like the contents of the emails in question or the FAQ page where it backs up your point?

And thanks, I feel special.

I actually don't have the emails I question, because the article is not about me or a client. They are, from what I've been told, a fairly scary sounding "one strike" template, nothing special.

The FAQ pages in question are linked prominently in the article. They have an entire section on this topic.

Wait, you've never seen these emails?

And I checked the FAQ and didn't see anything about a 1% unsub rate resulting in account suspension or anything. Maybe I missed it? Care to point it out?

The people in the article are not clients of mine. They are clients of my girlfriend — why is this a factor? I don't have access to their emails.

As for the 1% details... you missed them:

http://www.mailchimp.com/kb/article/about-warnings/

They are all over the MailChimp FAQs.

You seem kind of hostile towards me, and I'm honestly not sure why.

I'm so fucking tired of "opt-out" bullshit.

So-called "opt-out" must DIE DIE DIE!

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