Does SPAM Unsubscribing Really Work?

dacarr asks: "An associate on a mailing list I am on recalled an article (which he, in turn, does not recall), in which the author managed to reduce his spam some 80% by, of all things, using the provided 'unsubscribe' mechanism in the messages. This is totally counterintuitive to what most of us have learned (doing so was a spectacularly good way to actually *confirm* your address) - but perhaps this isn't the case anymore, based on this. Has anyone else had any luck as far as this goes? By following the aforementioned unsub links, said associate found a number of broken links and dead addresses (and one link that tried to create an attachment and email it out (which he stopped)), but after three days and 400 unsub links, he trimmed his spam levels 'from an average of 250 a day to just 40 today' - that's just around 17% of what he was getting. Maybe spammers are getting their act together and listening for a change." Do any of you have any anecdotal evidence to provide to confirm or contradict this? Have you been able to lower your spam volume by "unsubscribing"?

My own suspicion is...

[rusty0101]

that the only time this is a valid mechanism, is when the sender of the e-mail has gotten your address through a partner agreement with a website where you provided an e-mail address as part of registering.

The other possibility is that some spammers are still using the functionality to validate e-mail addresses, but as part of that action, they hide the fact from the recipient by suspending spam to the address for some weeks or even months before re-distributing the address to their buddies. As a result, the recipient thinks that the "unsubscribe" worked, but in the end gets even more spam.

Then again, I could be wrong. I am sitting at around 2-300 spam messages per day, if I see other reports that this is working, perhaps I will try it out as well.

-Rusty

Red Herring?

[icerunner]

And what if this 'anecdotal article' was in fact posted by a spammer.

What better way to try and reassure people that unsubscribing via the link in a spam email works and therefore get even more unsuspecting people to verify their addresses?

Wouldnt recommend this method

[NeverEnoughTime]

While the slashdot bretheren might be able to intelligently pick apart some message headers and the unsub link to see if there is any legitimacy to it, we all know that the average user has nowhere near that level of sophistication. Trying to get your average user to stop and think about where the unsub link is taking them is like trying to convince them that they shouldn't open attachments from e-mail addresses they dont recognize.

People not using unsubscribe is a pain in the ass.

[sideshow]

I work for a online incorporator (we form corporations, LLC's, etc.). We maintain a email list that includes past clients, people who sign up for our newsletter, people who give us business cards at expos, etc. We send out about 5 emails a month.

Each time we send a email out dozens of people call us to bitch about it. We've been accused of "domestic terrorism" more then once. People scream about receiving emails for the last three months. I'd like to ask them why the hell the waited until they waited until the 15th email to complain and why they never unsubscribe, but I know better.

Re:My own suspicion is...

[kenthorvath]

I don't understand how people claim to get 100's of spam messages per day. The most I've ever gotten, I think was perhaps 10, which is a rarity. In fact, most of the email I get is from companies that I actually agreed to them sending me email. Now I've had an email address since the early 90's. I've even subscribed to a few porn sites in the past and posted my address on numerous usenet posts. Nowadays I'm nostly careful, but the fact still remains that spam has never been a problem for me. Are there other people like me out there? And if you do get plagued by spam, do you know what triggered it?

Re:People not using unsubscribe is a pain in the a

[cmowire]

Well, that's why you should be doing confirmed opt-in, not just mailing folks who "should" get mail. Back in "the day", this wasn't such a problem, and I do sympathize with you. This is really the spammers ruining things for everybody else. So you want to make the user give you a response with a unique token to confirm that they want on.

The problem is, there's nothing you can do to assure legitimacy that spammers don't abuse. A good chunk of spam assures you at the bottom of the message that you really did subscribe to their list, so people just don't believe it. And people will forget astonishingly fast that they gave you their address.