[mgkimsal]

It might help the situation more if webmail providers provided actual 'unsubscribe' or 'hide' links in their UI instead of 'spam' being the only feedback mechanism users are offered.

"unsubscribe" links vary in position, language and visibility in various clients. Making something beyond "this is spam" part of most mail clients, perhaps with reporting back to the originating sender, would help.

[PythonicAlpha]

Problem here is that particularly such "unsubscribe" links where used in the past (and still are, I guess) to reassure spammers that somebody is there. Because one problem spammers have is the quality of the addresses they have. Many spammers use lists from dubious sources and a big number of addresses are invalid. So, if they get an "unsubscribe", they know which addresses are better and can deliver more spam to it ...

So many don't dare to use such links and rather click on spam.

The only solution could be some "trusted" functionality that goes via the own mail provider of the receiver. But of course the mail provider can not simply send information to the sender of the eMail .... So the thing gets complicated. As much I learned, for spam clicks there is something like that available ... some kind of trusted feedback chain that gives information to trusted senders, that some mails where labeled as spam. Thus those senders can (indirectly) adopt their eMail campaigns.

[__david__]

> Many spammers use lists from dubious sources and a big number of addresses are invalid. So, if they get an "unsubscribe", they know which addresses are better and can deliver more spam to it ...

That's only true of the dubious "viagra" style spam, where they got your name from a list. I don't think those even bother with "unsubscribe" links any more. I only see unsubscribe links from places where I've had to give my email up to buy something or sign up to a site. Those are generally legit and most of the techy/startup web sites will unsubscribe you immediately.

The next tier are the sites that unsubscribe you but take more than a week and will keep spamming their dumb newsletter in the meantime.

The final ones are either broken by stupidity (it's amazing how many web developers cannot grasp that "+" is a legit email character), or willfulness and will keep spamming no matter what. I block these at the SMTP level with 503 messages (usually containing some personal insults and swearing) as soon as they "RCPT TO" the unique email address I gave them.

[PythonicAlpha]

Luckily I managed to block much of the spam I got before, so I don't see the current spam behavior. But some years ago, there well existed some non-viagra style spammers that just put dubious unsubscribe links inside. I never tried myself, but was warned that they use the information against you. I would guess, that verified eMails have a greater value ... but it also might be negligible now, since with bot-networks spammers don't need to care if they send 1 billion or 10 billion eMails ...

[skymt]

Gmail has done this since 2009, though it depends on good behavior from the sender.

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/unsubscribing-made-eas...

[MitziMoto]

Another problem is that in some mail clients like Outlook.com, the "spam" button is actually labeled "junk". People clicking "junk" probably think they're just deleting an email.

[cones688]

It is also part of UK law for Marketing folk