[supriyo-biswas]

Instead of trying to unsubscribe, the best way to punish a business is to use the “mark as spam” button liberally.

Most email sending services have upper caps on acceptable complaint rates, and if done by a sufficient number of users, would result in a suspension of their sending capabilities, and an IP address block on whatever email service you’re using.

[burkaman]

Yeah if you clicked the unsubscribe button and they're still sending you email, then it's spam. It doesn't matter if you think the company deserves to be "punished" or not, this is just literally what the word spam means and what that button is for.

[eloisius]

Yep. I'm getting more and more aggressive with spam reports every year. If they don't have a single-click Unsubscribe link in the email, I won't even bother trying. I just mark it as spam. If the filter doesn't learn, I add them to my Fastmail rules which automatically reports it. My inbox surprisingly remains one of the most tolerable facets of my internet experience.

[petesergeant]

> the best way to punish a business is to use the “mark as spam” button liberally

I like the idea but I doubt it. Who do you think is enforcing this? Their transactional email provider don’t want to lose the business, Gmail/MS/Fastmail aren’t going to spamhole a big legit business…

[supriyo-biswas]

Gmail and MS are particularly aggressive about blocking abusive senders, and it gets talked about a lot in companies that send high volumes of email and complying with their requirements.

I used to work for a email sending provider a few years ago. For smaller senders close to breaching the limit, warning emails would be sent out reminding them about email sending practices; for larger senders these would take the form of meetings set up between the customer and their account manager about the issue.

[petesergeant]

I think there is zero chance of either of them blocking Twilio (which is what Nextdoor uses), as their users would riot. Twilio aren't going to drop a customer who they prominently feature[0] for sending emails to customers to whom they have an existing relationship.

The only kind of spam anyone really seems to care about is truly unsolicited email. A publicly listed company with an aggressive stance towards emailing their existing users, nobody is going to get excited about.

0: https://customers.twilio.com/en-us/nextdoor-2

[supriyo-biswas]

All I can say is IPs can and do get blocked by email receiving services, and especially Gmail and MS with their automated feedback loops, with all the implications of collateral damage that it entails. I remember helping provide data points in a similar conversation with another large customer (and a brand name that most would recognize here) who was concerned about increasing complaint rates.

The problem, if anything is that people kinda don’t know about what to do with these emails, and if more people marked these emails as spam, senders such as Nextdoor would sit up and take notice.