Hacker News Reader

Comment by r1ch | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised how many big companies fail the one-click unsubscribe test. Whether it's Cloudflare or Akamai blocking the connection, pages that take 5+ seconds to load, pages that require you to sign in or input your email address again... don't be surprised when customers reach for the Report Spam button instead.

View on HN

I don't unsubscribe from emails I haven't opted in to. So report spam it is.

Same. If I subscribed to it (rare), I'll unsubscribe. If I get unsolicited mail of any kind, I'm not "unsubscribing", I'm nuking from orbit by any means available, including reporting to hosting providers. (This has, on occasion, resulted in the termination of a spammer's account, but the success rate is low.)

I'm mostly talking about those emails with helpful hints and upsells that you get when signing up for a new service. People who make a living from spamming^H^H^Hbulk sending may consider those legitimate.

I'm using NextDNS with AdBlock list, which is effectively a Pi-hole on the cloud.

The most annoying this is when email senders use click tracking on domains that are blocked by those AdBlock lists. I keep a separate browser instance to copy-paste those links into, but then I have to login again.

I prefer sending unsubscribe emails instead of clicking links. Gmail can automate it.

The only reason some clicks still get through is because they’re using CNAME cloaking to mask the tracker.

Any email I get with click tracking, gets reported as spam.

I’ll unsubscribe, but now call BS on the “this may take 14 days to take effect…” nonsense in 2024. If I’m getting more emails in a couple of days, they’re getting marked as spam. (Looking at you, TripAdvisor. If you can figure out how to build AI-generated itineraries, you can figure out how to not email them.)

Agreed, I think of it was a simple UI competition. Customers will do whichever is must convenient: unsubscribe or report spam.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com