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Comment by somehnguy | Hacker News Reader

That's the case for spam sent by illegitimate parties (actual spammers), but any real company (what OP is referring to) will respect the unsubscribe button because they're at risk of being sued otherwise. Clicking unsubscribe in those cases actually does work & doesn't put you at risk of anything.

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I get spam from legitimate companies who don't honor the unsubscribe links. The problem is that many of them use third-party services to handle the unsubscription server so you're feeding the data broker ecosystem with confirmation that you're an active address.

This is an irrational reason. When you click “mark as spam” the sender can configure the email so your email provider notifies them that you marked it as spam. (See email feedback loop).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feedback_loop_(email)

Further, pixels can be embedded in the email so they can see when you open the email and how many times.

The sender has every incentive to properly handle unsubscribe to avoid spam traps. If you get big enough, users WILL come sign up for your service with a known spam trap email. If your operations are as sloppy as you’re suggesting, your email sending capabilities go poof.

> they're at risk of being sued

I think this risk is overstated. Individual spam recipients in the United States have no standing to sue under CAN-SPAM; only the FTC does, and there's a high bar to get their attention.

I find the venn diagram of spammers and "legitimate" companies increasingly overlaps and it's impossible to cleanly differentiate the two.

my university spams me. i bought a torch from olight. they spam me. i get food deliveries. they spam me. i bought some tech. they spam me. i look for real estate they spam me. i get a delivery. they spam me.

it's differentiating between the two that's unrealistic.

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