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Comment by inetknght | Hacker News Reader

> a pure reflex to click the unsubscribe link.

That's a learned trait. I don't click unsubscribe links; I click "report spam" and "report phishing" button.

If only Gmail would let me create filters to automatically mark entire domains as spam though. That would be nice...

I'm sure this [reporting spam rather than unsubscribing] happens all the time but it's sort of obnoxious if the email is legit and, especially, if it's a list you requested to get put on at some point.

If you got my email address from a third party, then I do not want to be marketed to.

If you got my email address because I applied for a job, then I do not want to be marketed to.

If you got my email address because I signed up for a service, then I do not want to be marketed to.

If you got my email address because I purchased something, then I do not want to be marketed to.

If you got my email address because someone else "legitimately" entered my email address into your field, then I do not want to be marketed to.

In short: your definition of "legit" likely does not meet my definition of legit. The only email that I deem to be legit is an email that:

1) is @from a domain name that I recognize (walk like a junk, talk like a junk, it's junk) 2) is @from the same domain name as the correspondent (no third party bulk email or proxies; eg mailchimp et al) 3) does not have a no-reply@ as the reply-to address (I must be able to talk to a human) 4) does not hyperlink to third party domains (from@domain must match hyperlinked domain text)

Any legitimate email outside of those parameters are specially treated with liberal amounts of filtering.

Your attitude doesn't account for the possibility that since you do business with somebody, you need or want to receive some of their emails.

This is the nature of any relationship. You can't be ruthless in eliminating aspects you don't like, if you don't want to end it entirely because it's net positive.

> Your attitude doesn't account for the possibility that since you do business with somebody, you need or want to receive some of their emails.

You are incorrect and interpreting my comments very narrowly.

Doing specific business with somebody should not give that somebody carte blanch to use my email address for whatever reason they wish. I absolutely can be ruthless in eliminating aspects I don't like and if businesses don't like that: tough shit. My world doesn't revolve around your business. If that means that the business relationship ends right there, then I'm better off for it.

And, assuming there are clear and reasonable ways to inform them that you don't wish further communications (as there should be with any professional marketing), you should take that route. Otherwise anything is fair game. But I attended an event and got a follow-up email? Calling that spam is mostly being an asshole.

Why is obtaining a follow-up email from an event impervious to being spam? Attending an event is not consent for marketing. Marking spam as spam is not being an asshole.

I know it sucks when an IP gets burned, but when you're acting in good faith it's a rarity - or has been in my experience.

One of the reasons you'll pry Evolution from my cold dead hands is Right Click -> Create Filter -> @domain.co.uk and done.
I have filters for almost everything, my boss goes into one folder and gets set one color, automated notifications from my internal system another (green if everything is OK, orange if there is something I really need to look at).

What I really* want is a desktop client that exposes a nice clean Python (or similar) API so I can automate even further - I mean Python has everything I want if I want to do that from the CLI/cron but having it built in would be really nice.

What happens when one of those blocked domains becomes a vendor for your org?

Nearly all of them are tech companies trying to sell me stuff because I once bought something from them, tried their service or briefly thought about it.

As I’m the head techie (by dint of been the only techie) , I’d be the one purchasing from them in the first place.

I find a filter that sends everything to Marketing/Hardware and marks as read fairer than flagging them as spam.

If you filter out all the people telling me they’ll be out the office, birthday announcements etc, all the vendors trying to sell me stuff and all the automated stuff (which I do automatically), I get less than 5 emails a day (I put my boss on Trello, it’s just better for what we need) which I check once at 11 and at 10 to 5.

I’m ruthless about my time since I’m the only programmer.

The unsubscribe link is more effective at stopping unwanted emails.

I automatically unsubscribe people who mark email as spam but lots of marketers dont do that so you will still receive emails.

Most legitimate companies will respect the unsubscribe links as that is required by law and they invested more infrastructure around that functionality.

I wouldn't click on links from phishing attempts or emails from sketchy services I never signed up. Anything semi-legit is better handled through the unsubscribe link first.

Heh, you could make a phishing attempt that looks like a really bad phishing attempt, and inside of it have a link that says "CLICK HERE TO REPORT SUSPECTED PHISHING ATTEMPT TO IT"

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