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Comment by withinboredom | Hacker News Reader

I also see this with emails too. I’ve had managers ask me to “just email everyone, even if they’ve opted out. This is important!”

Then I spend a few minutes explaining how laws work, spam traps, and most importantly, consent.

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I think it would be better to say "No, that's illegal."

By volunteering explanations it's as if the onus is on you to convince the manager not to do the illegal thing with doing it being the default.

Could you expand on your response to them for those of us who are unsure of how to diplomatically push back on something like this?

"It is illegal in the EU (GDPR) and US (CANSPAM) to send promotional email to people who have opted out."

unfortuantely lots of messages are not marketing and in some cases companies have legal duties to send them. My German bank insists on notifying me that I have a message. They can’t send the actual message (for security reasons), and I can’t opt out because they have a duty to inform me. Infuriating but seems to fall within the legal framework :(

You should still be able to opt out, then they should have to send a letter. Unless of course the law says “email”

I tried but to no avail. My German is very basic which makes things even harder. From what I recall they have a legal duty to notify me, and email is an acceptable form of notification, and that’s about it. I ended up using a unique email address and then let it bounce, but not sure it’s the wisest thing(?). I don’t actually need any emails from my bank, so thought it was an ok solution, but not great.

I’ve found the easiest way to push back is to explain the very real risk of getting blacklisted. In the US, the law is basically inconsequential because there’s no private right of action (an individual can’t sue you for spamming them).

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