One in particular tried to tell me to reset the password on the account so that I could sign in and opt-out of the mailing lists. I refused, saying that doing so would be acknowledging the account as mine and putting the onus on me to manage something I never signed up for. They refused to budge, despite numerous escalations.
I swear I feel more like Hank Hill every day.
For senders trusted by your mail provider, this may trigger feedback loops (automatically informing the sender that their e-mail is unwanted, and usually requiring them to act on that).
If e-mail deliverability providers (MailChimp etc.) are involved, they usually try to either educate or fire customers who misbehave, since they don't want to get their servers blacklisted entirely.
In general, marking as spam should increase the probability that future e-mails from this company (or, if they're smart to separate it, at least their marketing spam) will be correctly delivered to the spam folder or outright rejected at delivery.
Good companies will require verification before sending anything else. Those I can ignore and they’ll go away. For the others, I make a good faith effort to unsubscribe, but a small one. They get about ten seconds for me to find the unsubscribe link, otherwise they get reported as spam. I’ve had some which won’t let me unsubscribe unless I log in to the corresponding account, which of course I can’t do.
Just remember that this stuff is spam. You’re not abusing a tool to your advantage, you’re using it the way it’s supposed to be used. Spam doesn’t have to be knockoff viagra or whatever.
Since "My experience with Mailchimp was decidedly not like that" seems to be attracting downvotes, I'll expand on that. Mailchimp is opt out. So when I found myself on the receiving end of some local dog botique's spam (I don't have any pets, dogs or otherwise) list that was being serviced by Mailchimp I got to go through the tedious process of opting out.
Getting off of the spam list required tracking down contact info on LinkedIn and spamming the spammers. As long as companies like Mailchimp provide opt-out instead of opt-in services, it is Mailchimp and their brethren that are the bad actors. Mailchimp and Marketo have earned a spot on my smtpd_sender_restrictions blacklist.
My experience with Mailchimp was decidedly not like that.
It’s great.
I've tried the catchall method on a domain I control, but got way too much spam people trying random addresses.
1. Go up the chain. Email the head of technology and head of marketing for the company. Tell them that what they are doing is unacceptable.
2. Look up the email service provider. Find their abuse address. Bring it up with them directly.
3. Mark as spam. I give companies one chance to get it right after I unsubscribe. If I keep getting emails I start to mark as spam. If I still get emails I escalate to #1 or #2
Nitrokey: https://www.nitrokey.com/
https://medium.com/@0x0ece/googles-advanced-protection-progr...
On a related note, has anyone already tested a FIDO2 key? I'm looking to buy one, but still can't find any, including developer previews.
Venture backed companies are required to grow fast to be competitive.
They do whatever they can to achieve this goal. Complain about that, not an individual. The individual is just trying to survive.
Sad thing is that this tactic works.
It’s likely that more people will end up buying because of this tactic then will care about it.
You’re right, it can be, and it is for much of the world. Which is why you need to get the system right.
This is at worst, a trivial annoyance. I don't see how we need regulation to outlaw this behaviour.
Considering legislation: I live in Germany. Over here unsolicited marketing mail (snail mail) addressed to me is illegal. I fully support legislation that extends the same standard to email (and I'm pretty sure yubico's behaviour is illegal here). It's waisting my time and computing resources for somebody else's gain (and that on a massive scale: if you waste just one minute each from a million people, that's two full years wasted)
Has already happened. Sending unsolicited marketing via email is illegal in Germany. For some light reading I can recommend this lawyers blog who blogs about his lawsuits against spammers https://www.kanzlei-hoenig.de/search/Spam/
A recent high profile case deciding that even marketing in auto replies constitutes spam was this https://www.dr-bahr.com/news/werbung-in-autoreply-e-mails-is... (with links to high court decisions)
An overview about under which conditions Marketing Mails are legal is here https://www.datenschutzbeauftragter-info.de/fachbeitraege/ne...
You can request that the sender produces a protocol of your opt-in. That’s usually the best route as a layperson since it demonstrates that you know your rights, carries no risk since no accusations are leveled and is a red flag for any lawyers on the other end. I have a link to a good sample text somewhere but can’t find it right now.
i don’t make purposeful email addresses; i don’t have time for that.
If they made the author a "registered user" when he submitted his address to the replacement program, they should make it clear that's what is happening. Or they need to expand their TOS language a bit...
The way you phrase it, to me, suggests that it would be impossible (in practical terms) for a company to operate any sort of replacement program via the net, because they'd be required to collect and process personal information digitally, and they would be likely advised to not do so without defining the terms under which that information would be used.
Another comment[1] suggests YubiCo implemented this replacement program by issuing coupon codes for their store. The checkout process requires consent to their terms.
They should have handled that better and made it clearer under which conditions you’d get email but it’s way down the list of annoying corporate email practices.
If I remember subscribing and haven't attempted to unsubscribe in the past, attempt to unsubscribe. Spending max 10 seconds.
All other situations, hit "mark as spam"
