Hacker News Reader

> I try to be reasonable here.

I try to be a little more reasonable here. If it's a business that required me to sign up to do business with them and didn't allow me to opt out of their marketing emails then I have no problem whatsoever clicking the Spam button. And, if their marketing emails go to a third party domain -- such as a bulk emailer -- then it goes into the Phishing bucket regardless of whether or not I opted out of their marketing emails.

So much of my “spam” is from services I definitely signed up for because I have a legit use for, Or product I’m glad to pay a fair price for, but they never even asked if I wanted to get emails from them during signup/checkout-the emails just start coming in.

What’s the deal with this?

I suspect it's because it works for enough people that it pays off.

Every now and then I forget how annoying it was last time, and I think it would be nice to donate money to some sort of charity, and then they proceed to spam me for the following year. A couple years later I forget about he experience, and the cycle begins again.

I donated $20 to doctors without borders four years ago (a friend wanted that in lieu of bday presents). I've since gotten close to 50 letters from them and other charities. That cost far outweighs the $20 I gave them.

Was this part of that feature happening on Facebook where people can create “campaigns” or just an ad hoc request to donate?

She requested it on facebook via one of those things, but I donated directly on their website since..facebook.

I experienced this after donating money and volunteering a few days to support a local public defense charity for people who can’t afford legal representation, but then I started getting emails from other charities. I once decided to let this ride and see how far that email address would go (signed up using a gmail account with a “+charity_name”).

In the span of two years the following happened:

* Original Charity I actually donated money to started emailing me

* then a second local charity I did NOT donate money to

* then I began getting messages from a local political candidate who was friendly with first charity

* soon after that Another local political candidate

* Then a statewide political action committee.

At no point in that original donation flow was I ever even asked “can we email you other communications?” I presume the “we will share your email with anyone we damn well please” was baked into whatever boilerplate privacy policy existed in the background of the site they used to collect and process donation payments. Which is a whole other problem.

Is “getting out of hand” a hyperbolic reaction to how cavalier the use of mailing lists and newsletters have become when people sign up just to use a personal finance app or donate to causes?

Because people like the GP and the GGP click "Spam" instead of the unsubscribe link/process for these services. (I do the same if I can't unsubscribe easily.) Any service that requires me to login to unsubscribe, rather than provide a tokenized unsubscribe link in the email, can suck it.

> GP and the GGP click "Spam" instead of the unsubscribe link/process for these services.

If the unsubscribe link goes to a third party site, it's literally indistinguishable from a phishing attempt.

you worried they might get the email address they just emailed you on out of you?

I try to be reasonable here. If it's something from a business I transacted with in the past or recognize the name, I will unsubscribe. I don't consider it spam. And I don't want to hurt their reputation.

I'm the same way. Except for two: Staples and eBay.

Staples will send me three e-mails asking me to review a product that I ordered, but that Staples hasn't even shipped to me yet. Spam.

Recently I purchased one item from eBay using the Guest Checkout feature because I don't have an eBay account, and don't want one. Now eBay sends me e-mails all the time. In order to unsubscribe, I'm instructed to sign in to an account I don't have. Spam.

People abusing their existing platforms is a huge problem; the incentives are all wrong.

This is an extremely common annoyance of mine with Kickstarter campaigns. I back a lot of projects, and it's insane how many creators abuse the "project updates" system to promote other projects, often totally unrelated and from totally different creators. They're clearly getting paid for these promotions. I can't just "unsubscribe" from the updates because I do need to be aware of "real" updates that may require my input/action.

And many apps that rely on push-notifications for their core functionality are polluting these streams with ads. Uber basically admits this: they send ride updates by sms because they know people turn off their ad-filled push notifications.

My town is also using its covid-emergency-updates sms system to advertise local composting.

This is becoming an acceptable practice, and it seems impossible to filter the cruft.

I take a very hands on approach with these people.

They get a mail saying one more spam from them and I will ensure I never buy anything they make again, add them to blacklists and tell other people they are spammers.

They tend to go the attack/whine route about being a struggling entrepreneur, and I try to educate. Of the ones who actually engage, about 1/3 seem to come around, which I consider a pretty good rate. (I follow through with the rest. They're just shithead spammers.)

> Other notorious example: business A founder also founds (unrelated) business B.

The worst for me is if you donate to one political campaign, once, you will be on every mailing list for every single candidate in that party for every single election; in every single country, state, county, province, parish, district, or city; forever.

I know that's how politics works today, but, Jesus, the #1 thing making me not want to participate in one of the major parties is this.

> If it's something from a business I transacted with in the past or recognize the name, I will unsubscribe. I don't consider it spam.

I do consider it spam, unless the email is actually about a previous transaction. I don't equate doing a transaction with a business with permission for them to bother me about something unrelated.

> Sometimes "unsubscribe from all" is completely ignored. Which really angers me.

I have a big problem with this and never know what to do.

Person buys my course after following newsletters for a while. All good.

I put them on a followup list that helps guide them through the course and keep them on track. All good.

They get a newsletter they don’t like and unsubscribe.

Now they stop getting followup guidance emails for the course. This is a problem. Almost certain not what they wanted to happen either. But okay I honor it.

A while later I make a huge update to the course or migrate to a new platform. I need to tell every buyer that their account is moving. But some have unsubscribed from all emails.

Do I add them back or not?

When in doubt, they're opted out.

Do you really want to open yourself up to being banned by your new platform, or facing a lawsuit over pennies in revenue?

They purchased lifetime access to the content. Should I not give it to them just because they didn’t like an email once?

Imagine being grumpy at a Starbucks barista once and now you can’t get Starbucks again ever anywhere.

Or a better example: You opted out of email now you can’t reset your password. Sorry can’t email you the link.

Why would unsubscribing from your newsletter stop them from accessing the content? Is the content only delivered via the newsletter from which they unsubscribed?

> A while later /../ migrate to a new platform. I need to tell every buyer that their account is moving. But some have unsubscribed from all emails.

They unsub'd all meaning "no more emails ever" as you said. How do I tell them the stuff moved if they don't want to be contacted ever again ever?

You don't have to. When they can't find you, assuming they miss your content, they'll use this miracle tool called a "search engine" to find you.

> Now they stop getting followup guidance emails for the course.

This might be the ex-marketer coming out in me, but surely the course guidance emails could be considered transactional to the service and be honoured by a different opt-in/out policy to the newsletter?

> I need to tell every buyer that their account is moving

Again, this use case isn't marketing, and should very much be allowed as a requirement to keep people informed about the use of their data. In the same way a "change password" email is allowed to be sent.

But my email platform doesn’t do that. When you hit “unsub all” you unsub all

That’s the tricky part that most “ew email is spam” folk forget. The definition of “all” can be super nuanced and most people don’t think about it.

From the sidelines, I'd think the answer is that your email platform should have that feature, or you should consider using entirely separate flows/tools for transactional emails and marketing emails. Not a lawyer, but AFAIK transactional emails are not subject to Spam rules & don't even need to have an "Unsubscribe" link. Mixing the two is just causing yourself needless pain.

> From the sidelines, I'd think the answer is that your email platform should have that feature

It does. But the user clicked "No I want to unsubscribe all"

Can you rephrase the choices?

- Unsub from this marketing topic.

- Unsub from all marketing mails. You will continue to receive paid course content; to terminate see [account deletion request page].

On the account deletion page, make it clear that they'll lose out on further paid content, don't come back crying, blah blah.