[janalsncm]

I bought my dad a sweater for our local MLB team. I made the mistake of using my real email. Ever since I’ve gotten a steady drumbeat of marketing emails and other low value content from them.

Spammers want us to think there’s a significant difference between their newsletter or marketing notes we may have technically signed up for (certainly not willingly) and I don’t feel bad about reporting both of them. If this forces spammers to consider whether recipients will want their messages, good.

[pc86]

It sounds like you absolutely did sign up for the emails, though.

I'm not sure how you could "unwillingly technically sign up" for something like that, especially at the scope of an MLB team which is going to have a team of lawyers, marketing policies, etc. They're not just going to spam people the risk is way too high.

[inetknght]

> It sounds like you absolutely did sign up for the emails, though.

Did he? The anecdote here is probably observed by everyone on this forum. How odd that you find it's unlikely to receive spam from a business transaction.

> I'm not sure how you could "unwillingly technically sign up" for something like that

Have you tried using the internet?

> the scope of an MLB team which is going to have a team of lawyers, marketing policies, etc. They're not just going to spam people the risk is way too high.

I would love to live in your world where there's little likelihood of getting spammed just for purchasing something once. Unfortunately, spamming people has effectively zero risk and all reward. If there were any real risk then we would see actual real and frequent consequences every day. We don't see that, but we do see lots of spam in our inboxes.

[lancesells]

I do work in digital marketing and there easily could be an automatic sign-up to email without ever opting in. There are plenty of services that will "restart" your email or that will identify you and send emails without consent [1]. If someone is saying they didn't subscribe I would believe them.

[1] https://www.wunderkind.co/how-it-works/performance-marketing...

[dspillett]

There are many dark patterns that encourage people to accept their address going on the general spam list:

* wording on check-boxes being sufficiently ambiguous that yo have to think to get the right meaning

* check-boxes on forms in different stages of the ordering process that have inverted meaning from each other

* resetting check-boxes to the “please send me junk” state if the user goes back to correct some other issue or otherwise update the order

* wording the checkbox text to imply that opting out also opts out of getting order update emails (or in some cases opting out does opt out of order updates messages too, and you have to check via some other method what the state of your order is)

And so on.

It is easy to avoid all these accidental opt-ins individually, but it is also very easy to miss one in amongst the sea of dark patterns and one is all that it takes. You need to be vigilant all the time, they scummy marketers only have to get lucky once.

Furthermore, I'm sure some just ignore your opt-out and send crap anyway. When taken to task they'll say you must have accidentally [un]checked the wrong box (how do you prove otherwise?) and tell you that you can opt out from future emails by following the link in the messages.