I experienced this after donating money and volunteering a few days to support a local public defense charity for people who can’t afford legal representation, but then I started getting emails from other charities. I once decided to let this ride and see how far that email address would go (signed up using a gmail account with a “+charity_name”).

In the span of two years the following happened:

* Original Charity I actually donated money to started emailing me

* then a second local charity I did NOT donate money to

* then I began getting messages from a local political candidate who was friendly with first charity

* soon after that Another local political candidate

* Then a statewide political action committee.

At no point in that original donation flow was I ever even asked “can we email you other communications?” I presume the “we will share your email with anyone we damn well please” was baked into whatever boilerplate privacy policy existed in the background of the site they used to collect and process donation payments. Which is a whole other problem.

Is “getting out of hand” a hyperbolic reaction to how cavalier the use of mailing lists and newsletters have become when people sign up just to use a personal finance app or donate to causes?

I donated $20 to doctors without borders four years ago (a friend wanted that in lieu of bday presents). I've since gotten close to 50 letters from them and other charities. That cost far outweighs the $20 I gave them.

> GP and the GGP click "Spam" instead of the unsubscribe link/process for these services.

If the unsubscribe link goes to a third party site, it's literally indistinguishable from a phishing attempt.