For years, I’ve been getting advertising e-mails from companies but I just try to add their names to my “junk senders” lists rather than click on the “unsubscribe” link. I just got back from a trip and while storting through my e-mail, (which at this point has become a chore) I started thinking about why I don’t do that and whether the reasons still apply.
Years ago, I was told not to click on the “unsubscribe” link on spam because it would tell the sender it was a valid address and they would send you more. I wonder if that was ever true or it was one of those 'net urban legends that you believe because it’s what you’ve always heard. I believe there have also been some spam laws passed which might have changed it-- or maybe that’s just something else I “heard somewhere.”
I’d imagine even if there are laws and rules, it probably wouldn’t apply to the guy who’s advertising " V 1 A G RA!!" but major retailers would obey, right?
I’d never considered wheather or not it might be an unban legend or not, but I’ve always told people their probably safe doing it on an email from a major retailer. ie, if you ordered from Office Depot, and start getting weekly specials from them, their probably safe unsubscribing.
Good question, I have always heard the same thing. It never worked when I tried to unsubscribe, and I did always seem to get more e-mail (could be my imagination of course). According to this site it could be true, along with some other supposed facts.
Of course it’s a myth. They send out many millions of spam messages a day, a high proportion of which bounce back. What do they care if you “prove” your address is real? They already have it. They never remove names on their own. Why bother.
And, yes, the links at the end of Viagra ads are all phoney. They just toss your “opt-out” into the ether.
Note also, that many legit emailers will have defective opt-out links. I don’t think they do it on purpose, but just aren’t very clever about things like their opt-out mailbox overflowing.
I’ll find about a third of legitmate sites will ignore opt-outs. Places like local TV stations, supermarkets, and banks. So those get the filter out treatment.
As Joey P said, if it appears to be a reputable site advertising something reasonable, then you’re probably safe hitting the “remove me” link. In the case of sites offering to enhance your anatomy or offering interesting pictures of the opposite sex then it is my understanding (i.e. no cites ) that, yes, clicking a “remove me” link or button will either do nothing at all or do the exact opposite of what you intend - you’ve just validated your e-mail address and indicated that you are prepared to at least give a spam message a passing glance (you need to do at least that much to find the “remove me” instructions).
I’d never considered wheather or not it might be an unban legend or not, but I’ve always told people their probably safe doing it on an email from a major retailer. ie, if you ordered from Office Depot, and start getting weekly specials from them, their probably safe unsubscribing.
I work for an anti-spam company and the rule we have is that you can safely unsubscribe from any Fortune 1000/Global 2000 company, but you certainly don’t want to try it for some small unknown firm.
Don’t know if a company is a Fortune 1000/Global 2000 or not? Use the “Have I ever seen national advertising from them before?” and that will usually tell you.
As noted, this is one of those “it depends” situations. Some unscrupulous sites might very well use your clicking on the Unsubscribe link to validate your email address and sned even more crap into your inbox. But, most major companies will honor the unsubscribe request. Note that even then, however, you may not be removed from the mailing lists of affilate companies (check the privacy policy for the site in question to see if they may provide your contact details to partner or affiliate companies). You might have to unsubscribe from each of those, in turn. For the most part, IME, clicking unsubscribe doesn’t generate any more spam, and often reduces it somewhat.
On this advice, I just tried to remove myself from Barnes & Noble’s mailing list. I was immediately directed to a site instructing me to allow cookies. Along with this I have to sign in to change my e-mail preferences, and I have no clue what my password was at the time because I haven’t purchased from them in years.
I think I’ll just instruct the filter to permenantly delete their messages instead.
As a former employee of a now-out-of-business company that sent commerical e-mail, I can confirm that the legitimate senders will, in fact, attempt to unsubscribe you.
We occasionally dropped the ball but we did our best. I do remember one irate unsubscriber that wrote us to complain that the process didn’t work and we traced it to the fact that he managed to spell unsubscribe incorrectly three times out of three (but a different way each time). That one completely bypassed our automatic inbound processing.
We also automatically unsubscribed those who’s email bounced repeatedly, came back with certain mailer codes, etc.
The illegitimate (v1agra) type, though, probably are scraping the incoming “unsubs” as a now verified target. You’re going to have to make a judgement call on the legitimacy of the sender to decide if you’re going to try to unsub.
After getting 25 e-mails from one place in three days, I tracked down their phone number, called them and threatened to sue if I ever received any more e-mail from them. I cussed them out for sending me so much e-mail for their “whore service.”
Yes and no… I’m sure Microsoft is a Fortune 1000 company (heck, it’s probably a Fortune 10 company), but that doesn’t mean the e-mails I get urging me to buy E><cel at a lovv, l0w pr1ce are legitimate. The rule of thumb I’d use, is to ask how this company got your e-mail address. For instance, I sometimes buy things from Amazon, and I checked the box allowing them to send me e-mail (but NOT the one allowing their “affiliates” to). So when I get ads from Amazon, they’re legit. I presume that, if I clicked one of the unsubscribe links in those, that it would work (though I haven’t tried, because I find the Amazon ads often useful). On the other hand, I’ve never given my e-mail address to Microsoft, so if I get something that looks like it came from Microsoft (remember, it may or may not have), I don’t have to think about it, just delete.
Gotta disagree here. While they probably aren’t removing “dead” addresses from their lists, they are CERTAINLY maintaining a list of “sucker” addresses. As previously mentioned, replying or clicking one of these not only tells them that it’s a valid, active address. But also that you’re the type to read these spam emails and not just auto delete. You’d better believe that’s worth something.
I always send unsubscribe to valid places. They don’t want to run afoul of the new email laws. The latest laws made it clear to businesses that hired other’s to do the spaming, that they were 100% liabal for it also. I would not recomend sending unsubcribe to one of the Nigerian scam emails, that would be stupid.
Here’s a great computer source for spam and security concers. There are multiple articles on Spam and you can follow the ground breaking developements against spam for the last year. The Internet Patrol featuring Auntie Spam.
[QUOTE=Q.E.D.]
Some unscrupulous sites might very well use your clicking on the Unsubscribe link to validate your email address…QUOTE]
Wouldn’t the fact that the mail didn’t bounce validate the address?
My worry wouldn’t be so much the sender ignoring my unsubscribe request as the sender putting my now-verified e-mail address on a list that is sold to dozens of other asshat e-mailers. Likewise for junk faxers.
No. Bouncing email is done entirely at the whim of the person setting up the email software at the ISP or company receiving the email. A lot of places are no longer bouncing back email because spammers don’t put in there own email address and instead use an innocent third parties email address. Some spammers send email to deliberately bogus addresses with the intended address in the from field of the email. This confuses the tracking of who really sent the spam.
I have nothing to hide, but just wanted to let every one know that yesterday, during a 30 minute period I received FOURTEEN THOUSAND emails. Yes, that’s 14,000. Someone got a hold of my domain and used at different names (as in name@mydomain.com) as a FROM line in a whole lot of emails. And my address just happens to be the catchall for inbound emails that don’t match one of our addresses. So I got 14,000 bounced/rejected/etc emails. I called and left a message with our domain name people and about a half hour later he called back. Apprently, the reason I ONLY got 14,000 was because someone over there noticed that their servers where starting to choke and when they looked into it they found my account getting all those emails (works out to about 8 per second) and luckily they shut off my catch all account so they didn’t pile in all night.
Sorry, coulda started a MPSIMS thread, but this works…I think
Spammers definitely try to determine whether your account is live or not; very often, they’ll do this by embedding a uniquely-named 1x1 pixel image somewhere in the email; the Image doesn’t even exist on their server, but when you open the email, your client tries to retrieve it to render it on the screen; when it requests the image from their server, they know you’ve read the mail (they know it was you because of the unique name they assigned to the image tag in the email they sent to you).
So… they clearly enjoy some benefit from ensuring that your email account is in fact a real one that somebody reads; I think the benefit is that they can place a higher price on lists of validated addresses.
That being the case, I’m certain that some of them will be verifying the existence of live addresses by uniquely-named unsubscribe URLs, or even easier, unsubscribe URLs that lead to a real web form into which you enter your address on the promise that you will be unsubscribed. I am absolutely certain that any such unsubscribe option on a spam message advertising penis enhancement, prescription meds, porn or ‘business opportunities’, will at best simply do nothing - it won’t unsubscribe you at all, but I’m pretty sure that most of them will use it to capture your address as being a live one.
I had every unsubcribe valid this year. It’s about once a month. The last even gave me the address of sister companies incase I felt they needed to be told. Like I said if it’s a scam dob’t reply, legitamite places will remove the address. Antie Spam was in on the drafting of the legislation that has been passed, so her site is very up to date on the issue.
) that, yes, clicking a “remove me” link or button will either do nothing at all or do the exact opposite of what you intend - you’ve just validated your e-mail address and indicated that you are prepared to at least give a spam message a passing glance (you need to do at least that much to find the “remove me” instructions).