[jgalt212]

> You could have been notified when the message was read a full 15 years before email had something similar tacked on.

Thanks to email security scanners this feature is largely broken.

And so are single click to unsubscribe links. So much so that we have to put our unsubscribe page behind a captcha.

rant over

[hilariously]

Not trying to be rude, but If you put your unsubscribe page behind a captcha I am going to mark you as spam and move on.

[AdamN]

I don't unsubsubscribe unless I explicitly subscribed in the past. If I did not subscribe in the first place then it's spam (exception for small businesses who may not know better in which case I'll delete or unsubscribe).

[sam_lowry_]

There are unsubscribe headers that are used by mail user agents like mutt to unsubscribe from mailing list managers like mailman.

These are "scanner-proof" so far but support in clients like Outlook or Gmail is non-existent.

[chuckadams]

Gmail not only understands the List-Unsubscribe header, it requires it for bulk deliverability.

[kstrauser]

I'll try unsubscribing once if it looks like a legitimate org, like someone I actually did business with but didn't expect them to email me. After that, it's going to the junk box to train the server what spam looks like.

[throw0101d]

> You could have been notified when the message was read a full 15 years before email had something similar tacked on.

Which spammers and marketers would have loved.

I have "load remote content" disabled on my e-mail client so that tracking graphics/pixels do not leak such information to the sender.

[jgalt212]

> I have "load remote content" disabled on my e-mail client so that tracking graphics/pixels do not leak such information to the sender.

Often times that's meaningless as email scanner software will load and inspect all links and images regardless of the human's email client preferences. It basically comes down to can Constant Contact, or similar, detect if a link was clicked by security software or an actual human. And security software wants to look like an actual human because if security software looks like security software it's very easy for bad actors to serve safe payloads to security software and malware payloads to human actors.

[cap11235]

If I cannot just click a button and unsubscribe, guess what, you are malicious spam.

[bombcar]

And if you can't figure out how to make an unsubscribe page that doesn't require a captcha (and is triggered by email scanners) you are incompetent. Claude can figure it out.

[sam_lowry_]

> and is triggered by email scanners

Did you mean "and is NOT triggered by email scanners"?

AFAIU, "email scanners" get more aggressive over time, so there is no once-and-forever solution. I guess AI-enabled email scanners can attempt to solve captchas as well.

[lxgr]

Yeah, use `List-Unsubscribe`. Has the additional advantage that I don't need to find the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of some bloaty HTML, works across languages etc.

If the email scanner of your recipient insists on clicking "unsubscribe" on their behalf without that being the desired outcome, that's not on you to prevent them from.

[bombcar]

I mean if your unsubscribe link unsubscribes someone just because Microsoft Email Phishing for Copilot visited the link to see if it was a Virus, then you need to “get gud” as the kids say.

[sam_lowry_]

The fault lies with Microsoft Email Phishing for Copilot or with the European Commission.

[jgalt212]

Email scanners don't exactly publish the methods by which you can reliably determine if a page was loaded or a link was clicked by a security scanner. If they did not appear human, then they'd be easy to trick and then not do their security job well.

[dpark]

Are you saying that email scanners were not only fetching the unsubscribe link but also submitting the “unsubscribe” button/form on the page?

I find this hard to believe since everyone else seems to manage this without a Captcha.

[yencabulator]

I does sound like they made a HTTP GET request have side effects.

[dpark]

I suspect that’s exactly what they did. And then they “solved” it with a Captcha. Conveniently I bet human unsubscribes also dropped when that was instituted.

[trollbridge]

No, it’s largely broken because of spam. I don’t want to be signed up to your useless email marketing list, and I want to use an email client that makes unsubscribing as easy as possible.

[jgalt212]

> I don’t want to be signed up to your useless email marketing list,

useless is in the eye of the beholder.

[dpark]

If I didn’t specifically opt in to receiving marketing emails (and no, failing to opt out is not the same), they are spam. I’ve never heard anyone say “I’m sure glad this company added me to their email list without my request.”

The fact that you happen to work on a mailing list product does not change that reality.

[jgalt212]

I hear what you're saying, but irrespective of how one landed on such a list, the unsubscribe mechanism is broken. e.g. It's entirely possible and likely you've subscribed to one or more marketing lists, newsletters, transaction emails, etc that you want to be on, but your security software inadvertently unsubscribed you (without your permission).

[lxgr]

No, it's not, because I don't use shitty security solutions.

If other people do and you are making me jump through hoops as a result to preserve your conversion rate, I'm reporting you to the relevant regulator.

> the unsubscribe mechanism is broken

Which one?

Are you saying some security solutions actually send a `List-Unsubscribe`/`List-Unsubscribe-Post` compliant HTTP POST with the correct payload, or do you think a URL in the email body is the gold standard of allowing people to unsubscribe?

Or are you just telling yourself that rationalization to avoid acknowledging that you're probably causing massive annoyance to many recipients?

[dpark]

I think this is extremely unlikely. Firstly because I almost never subscribe to newsletters or marketing lists. But also because I don’t believe my security software is submitting POSTs on random forms it finds links to. That would be insane behavior.

I can believe someone, somewhere has insane security software that does stuff like that. But I don’t believe it’s common.

[AnimalMuppet]

That I want to be on? No. What usually happens is that I give my email to somebody (an auto repair place, say), for one-time use, and they add me to their marketing mailing list, even though that is not what I gave them my email for. That is not a list that I want to be on and willingly subscribed to.

[kstrauser]

Useless is in the eye of the recipient. The sender doesn't get a vote.

[lxgr]

And guess who's the beholder of your spam...

[lxgr]

> we have to put our unsubscribe page behind a captcha.

Hope you're not ever sending email to EU residents!

Have you ever heard of `List-Unsubscribe`? It solves your problem without massively annoying people and breaking accessibility and/or the law.

[WhyNotHugo]

I think you're referring to things like tracking pixels, whereas the author was likely referring to _actual_ email read receipts, where the sender can request a read receipt, and the receiver's MUA will prompt them to send one.

[jgalt212]

Yes, same feature, different implementations.

[xnx]

> Thanks to email security scanners this feature is largely broken.

One person's feature is another's anti-feature. I'm glad it's dead.

[PunchyHamster]

waiting for inevitable "gmail bad, why it spams my emails so much" rant