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Comment by albertgoeswoof | Hacker News Reader

It's transactional email - so generally speaking it's not a subscription list that recipients are on per se. This is in line with the CAN SPAM guidance (although that is a US law it's good guidance to follow globally).

Also it requires senders to actually implement it, which is not possible to confirm. Although we could add a catch all service that does this automatically, which I think we'll do.

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As someone who gets tons of transactional email I didn't sign up for (wrong address), please do implement your catch-all service and make unsubscribe mechanisms mandatory. If I can't stop it, I mark it as the spam it is, which can't be great for deliverability.

Oh lordy this so much this. As a holder of a beloved 5 character gmail address that is a common first and last name let me tell you that the misdirected email I receive is insane and countless. Services with an reputable unsubscribe get unsubbed and then I moved on. Services with no way to unsubscribe get marked spam each and every single time. Services that do that are effectively dead to me because if they ever do send a legit email gmail will automatically flag and remove them for me and I can't help but believe (with some insider knowledge) that this also impacts deliverability to other gmail accounts.

There’s nothing to unsubscribe from if it’s transactional email. You aren’t on a mailing list. You can’t be removed from a non-existent list you aren’t on.

Are you asking to be blacklisted from all future transactional email from a particular service? That’s something very different to being unsubscribed. You’re asking to be added to a list, permanently.

Most of these transactional messages are associated with customer accounts. They absolutely can remove email addresses from those accounts. The problem isn't emailed receipts from typing in your email address at a brick and mortar checkout or "guest" checkout on an online store.

As I was writing this message, Florida Power and Light sent me yet another "transactional" message I can't unsubscribe from because they're under the mistaken impression I'm their customer.

I get tons of messages from otherwise reputable companies (household names) that have no "unsubscribe" options because they consider the messages required for active account holders (and I'm not ready to close my account) but the messages certainly aren't triggered by a transaction that I'm party to. For example, banks will periodically inform me about how I should stay vigilant to avoid fraud, and all sorts of similar concepts. Any thoughts on whether this type of stuff violates CAN SPAM?

"Transaction email" reminding you your subscription is up for renewal in 16,356 days (and repeat) including tons of ads for other products.

This is the definition of spam. Unsolicited email with no way to revoke consent. Your user’s recipients should be able to revoke consent whenever they feel like it. If they can’t reply to the email, or unsubscribe, and the only choice to revoke consent is to mark an email as spam … you are sending spam.

No, it is not. You're missing a few key qualifiers that will depend on the country but generally include the notion of "bulk" email (thus directly excluding transactional emails).

A couple examples of such nuancing qualifiers:

- "unless prior permission has been obtained or unless there is a pre-existing commercial relationship between the parties" (UK)

- "for the purposes of direct marketing" (EU)

You may read this table to get more examples of local definitions and the associated regulations, per country: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_spam_legislation_by_co...

"thus directly excluding transactional emails"

I'm not excluding transactional emails because to someone who doesn't want your email ... it is not transactional.

You are making a bunch of leaps of logic:

1. The person you are emailing is the same person using your service.

2. The person you are emailing consents to you emailing them about your service.

Consent can be withdrawn at any time, it doesn't matter if it is "transactional" or not, "legally spam" or not. This is just basic human decency and if you cannot follow it ... then this is why we need laws, I guess.

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