Rant on Email Notifications
amandapeyton.com
amandapeyton.com
- If a service's registration has the "send notification" button checked by default, and I don't see it when I register.. well each time I get an email from the service, I flag it as spam. Damn, these things really should be opt-in, not opt-out.
- If the unsubscribing takes more than exactly one step. I flag.
It's a bit harsh, but I don't like feeling trapped. The OP's right: unsubscribing should be as simple as clicking on a button.
The benefits of 1-click unsubscribe and not receiving additional unwanted emails outweigh this small chance of being unsubscribe from a list I want to be on.
Nearly a decade ago I worked on MMORPGs for EA. An astounding amount of game design, engineering, and customer support effort went into addressing a tiny portion of the userbase we called "griefers". Griefers may be 0.1% of the population but one griefer can create an enormous number of unhappy players. You come up with a feature and think "there's only a tiny chance that someone could use this to harass or annoy another player"... and guess what, the actual chance is near 100%. Maybe this is what bored kids do today instead of TPing houses.
The problem with simple one-click unsubscribe links is that there isn't a way to stop the griefing. One kid gets the link and never tires of clicking it. The owner has no idea who is doing it and can't stop it and gets incredibly frustrated and angry. One incredibly angry user is far more hazardous to your business than 10,000 slightly inconvenienced users.
Is this a realistic problem? I don't really know, it probably depends on your app. The stakes are a lot lower here than in an MMORPG somebody is paying $20/mo for. But when I look at the incentives, I genuinely wonder if one-click unsubscribe (or any other kind of auto-login from an email) is a good business decision. It would certainly make sense to build in some protection, like expiring after 24 hours or whatnot.
I'm very curious to know what other people on the sending side of this business think. Obviously as an email recipient you want the system to securely and anonymously read your mind and act according to your specific intention automatically all the time.
Update: I just noticed that this goes against Amanda Peyton's last request (Do not send an unsubscribe confirmation email.). But I guess she's wrong on that (because unsubscribe could be unintentional or malicious based on forwarded email).
I've been very happy with the disposable e-mail provided by http://spamgourmet.com; it's free, reliable, and you can create a new disposable address without visiting their web site. (It's not a pretty-looking web site, but it does the job.)
Unfortunately many websites seem to think that '+' is not a valid character in an email address. Very annoying.
1. Your service's email notifications are divided into dozens of little categories, including one particular "core/important/essential" one that I don't actually want to uncheck (for example, payment-received notifications on Paypal.)
2. I uncheck all the other categories, but am forced to leave the core notification setting checked (otherwise I'd basically be rendering the service useless.)
3. You add a new category of useless notification... and default it to checked. And you have a justification for this: I never asked to unsubscribe from all notifications; I only asked to subscribe from some notifications.
Of course, this would be useless to put on the list, because the types of companies who do this know exactly what they're doing.
What would you do with the information about who sold your email address?
The best defense against spam is spam flag button. It can be successfully used on your single gmail account.
This should not be news.
This is such a poignant and direct statement because it applies to so many other things than just unsubscribing from services.
Unless you store your marketing lists on paper in your bank's vault, there is no reason it should take this long to remove me.
I don't care if you're using an external agency who has an old copy of the list. Fix your process. You don't need 7 days to delete my email address from your database.
Email sent to "my_gmail_username"+service_name@gmail.com is delivered to "my_gmail_username"@gmail.com, Anything after + is ignored by gmail for email delivery.
It's analogous to a friend that only calls when he needs something, and only talks about himself when he does. Basically, it's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" stuff, applied to technology services.
"How to Win Users and Influence People" ;-)
There is a reason for that: it's hard enough to know your own domain's wants and needs, let alone all of your user's wants and needs.
Users are legion and diverse and unique.