Does SPAM Unsubscribing Really Work?

dacarr asks: "An associate on a mailing list I am on recalled an article (which he, in turn, does not recall), in which the author managed to reduce his spam some 80% by, of all things, using the provided 'unsubscribe' mechanism in the messages. This is totally counterintuitive to what most of us have learned (doing so was a spectacularly good way to actually *confirm* your address) - but perhaps this isn't the case anymore, based on this. Has anyone else had any luck as far as this goes? By following the aforementioned unsub links, said associate found a number of broken links and dead addresses (and one link that tried to create an attachment and email it out (which he stopped)), but after three days and 400 unsub links, he trimmed his spam levels 'from an average of 250 a day to just 40 today' - that's just around 17% of what he was getting. Maybe spammers are getting their act together and listening for a change." Do any of you have any anecdotal evidence to provide to confirm or contradict this? Have you been able to lower your spam volume by "unsubscribing"?

Comments

Re:Pure Luck?

[AnwerB]

> When I unsubscribed (the ones which didn't bounce back, etc...), the amount of spam I started to receive grew expotentionally.

You know, it might have just grown anyway, as the email address was copied from list to list...

It might have been a good idea to do a control study, where you set up two emails, equally obscure and subscribe to the same sites. On one email unsub., and see what happens.

Not entirely the same method, but effective anyway

[Frambooz]

I have the "privilige" of owning my own domainname with unlimited email-addresses and, more importantly, a Catch-All address (e.g. mail to non existent mailboxes end up in the Catch-All address, which is, by choice, own email address).

When I register on a page (New York Times, for instance), I simply enter a non-existent email address with the name of the service: newyorktimes@[mydomain.com]. Any email (passwords) sent to that address will end up in my personal inbox, and I can easily check to which address it was delivered originally (by checking the "To" field or scanning the headers of the message).

The key part is that you can't use that address for ANY other purpose. Don't post it on forums, don't use it to subscribe to other services. If there's a spinoff-service from a site you're already registered to, and it requires you to register again, use a new address. It'll all end up in the same inbox anyway.

This has two upsides: it's easy to create sorting-rules in my email client and, in relation to this /. article, once you start receiving spam on the 'fake' address (e.g. they sold your address to 3rd parties), that address is easily blocked by creating an auto-reply on my server whenever a message to newyorktimes@[mydomain.com] arrives.

In fact, its even hard proof for them selling your message, so you can back-track the user agreement and see if they're allowed to do that.

The big downside to this is that when you use a fake address for a public mailinglist, they can require you to send mail from that fake address. Then, you'll need a client that allows you to change the From-field in one way or another.

My $0.02.

P.S. I know you can get my domain from looking at my profile, but I figured I keep the example simple by using [mydomain.com].