Yahoo Blocks Venerable Email List Over False Positives

RomulusNR writes "Yahoo has stopped delivering This Is True, Randy Cassingham's 14-year-old mailing list, because too many Yahoo readers have mistakenly or carelessly flagged it as spam. Yahoo readers make up over 10% of True's readership, slashing the ad revenue that keeps it going. And Yahoo doesn't negotiate with spammers. As Randy describes it: 'The yahoos... ask to be put on True's distribution, then confirm that request, and... then click the "This is Spam" button when they don't recognize the mailing or simply don't want it anymore. Yes, those yahoos have screwed thousands upon thousands of others who really do want my newsletter. Too bad: Yahoo is listening to the yahoos instead: they're blocking it. To them, we're "spammers" and no protestations from "spammers" count.' The irony is that This is True is one of the first profitable mailing lists, predating Yahoo! Mail by almost three years."

Comments

ANOUNCEMENT

[pxlmusic]

rom: Dramane Yadi - dramane.yadi@katamail.com

From: Mr. Dramane YadiAbidjan Cote D'Ivoire West - Africa
Dear Friend,

I am Mr. Dramane Yadi, I work in the Accounts/ Operations Department of a Prime banks here in Abidjan Cote D'Ivoire. I actually have an urgent and very confidential business proposal for you. I got your contact from Internet and decided to contact you immediately.

On January 10th 1994, An American Oil Consultant/ Contractor with the Societe Ivoirienne De Raffinage (SIR), Mr. George Norman Wesley, made a number time (fixed) deposits valued at US$8,750,000 (Eight Million, Seven Hundred & Fifty Thousand United States Dollars). On investigation, it was discovered that Mr. Wesley died along with his family in a plane crash. On further investigation, I discovered that Mr. George Norman Wesley did not leave a WILL and all attempts to trace his Next of Kin proved abortive. I therefore made further investigation and discovered that Mr. Wesley did not declare any Next of Kin in all his official documents, including his Bank Deposit paper work. This sum of US$8,750,000 is still floating in the Bank and the interest is being rolled over with the principal sum at the end of each year. For the past 5 to 6 years now, no one has ever come forward to claim the fund.
According to the Ivoireinne Laws, at the expiration of 7 (seven) years, the money will revert to the ownership of the Ivoireinne Government if nobody applies to claim the funds. That is what gave way to this deal.
Consequently, my proposal is that I will like you as a foreigner to stand in as the Next of Kin to Mr. George Norman Wesley so that the fruits of this old man's labour will not get into the hands of some government officials.
To facilitate the transaction therefore:

1. I would like you to provide me with a viable account details where this fund could be safely transferred into as Next of Kin of the former depositor.

2. We do not anticipate any risk/problem whatsoever, as all the loopholes has been taken care of and there is no risk involved in this deal. All the Computer work for this transaction will be done by me, including your name as the new Beneficiary of this fund.

You will be entitled to 30% of the total amount as your commission after the transaction. If you are interested and capableof handling this deal, please write. On receipt of your response, I shall then provide you with more details on how to go about it.

Please note that this is very confidential. And as I am still a staff with the bank here. I would not like to be known or mentioned as having knowledge of the deal but I will be giving you inside information on what to do.

Awaiting your urgent reply. Do not forget to include your direct telephone and fax numbers for further communication.

Faithfully Yours,

Mr. Dramane Yadi

Re:ANOUNCEMENT

[Stooshie]

How can the parent be modded off topic? It's completely on topic and actually quite funny.

Re:ANOUNCEMENT

[pxlmusic]

i thought it was funny.

So, what is the problem?

[fluch]

If you are not happy with the way the email service is provided (in this case by Yahoo), then change tho some other place, say for example Google. Mark me troll .. but isn't this the way the market works?

Re:So, what is the problem?

[moreati]

The person being hurt is the mailing list owner, who isn't a customer of Yahoo. The Yahoo subscribers, who marked it as spam will be quite happy, they're no longer receiving this email they forgot subscribing to. The remaining Yahoo subscribers may or may not notice they ceased receiving it. Many will assume that the mailing list has closed all together.

So I don't see any market pressure to force Yahoo's hand. Other than what little publicity the mailing list owner can generate.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[dbcad7]

Not sure why you are marked "off topic".. What you say is true from a receivers point of view.. What I would do if I was the sender though, is create a little informative email telling the Yahoo users what the deal is, and recommending that if they wish to continue getting the newsletter that they new a new email provider.. and then send to the Yahoovians using a different email address.. for irony, maybe even use Yahoo to send it.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[negRo_slim]

they're no longer receiving this email they forgot subscribing to

guilty. not of this particular list but of countless others, its just easier to mark for example, amazon spew as spam than rather take the few minutes (generally) to correctify the problem.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[lena_10326]

The person being hurt is the mailing list owner, who isn't a customer of Yahoo

If no one is upset over its absence, then it indeed was spam. The determination of spam is based on whether you want it to continue or not. The lack of complaining subscribers suggests it wasn't.

The remaining Yahoo subscribers may or may not notice they ceased receiving it. Many will assume that the mailing list has closed all together.

A paying subscriber will know.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[phagstrom]

A valid point. However, from personal experience I can tell you that when [place name of any webmail service] users no long get the mail they expect, they don't blame said webmail service - they blame the company or person that *should* have sent the mail. Because we all know that mail *always* gets through and that Yahoo, Hotmail, Google et al *always* work as they should.

The problem is compounded by the fact that answering angry support mail from users demanding to get their newsletter might be impossible, because that too may be blocked.

So while I agree with you that this could be solved by getting the webmail user to shift over to a new provider, the user may never be aware that the mail provider is the problem.

I guess solving the spam problems is not an easy task :-)

Re:So, what is the problem?

[D'Sphitz]

If no one is upset over its absence, then it indeed was spam. The determination of spam is based on whether you want it to continue or not. The lack of complaining subscribers suggests it wasn't.

Huh? It's an OPT IN MAILING LIST, with a very deliberate signup process, you can't inadvertently or accidentally sign up. You have an interesting definition of what spam is, well not so much interesting as stupid.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[SirShmoopie]

It is in the nature of people to seek the shortest path to gratification.

An unsubscribe process takes more clicks then hitting 'mark as spam'. That's all the reason people need to use the spam button. Can you honestly say you've never done it?

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Tony Hoyle]

Companies that spew junk at me becuae I happened to visit their site *once* get firmly reported as spam.. it's unsolicited commercial email ie. spam.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Rary]

An unsubscribe process takes more clicks then hitting 'mark as spam'. That's all the reason people need to use the spam button. Can you honestly say you've never done it?

Um, yes, actually. I'm kind of shocked that you even consider it a valid option. Does it not occur to you that this has the potential to impact other people, too? I mean, I can be as lazy as the next person sometimes, but how hard is a couple fucking clicks of a mouse?

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're so wrong about your "determination of spam" that it hurts. Please leave the Internet.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Beardo the Bearded]

As someone who's been on Randy's list for 10+ years, I can tell you it's easier to remove yourself from his list than anything else. It's literally just one click to unsubscribe.

In fact, it's easier to get off his list than it is to get on.

Some people do pay for the upgraded "Premium" This is True, and those people are not getting a paid-for-service.

What if yahoo decided that announcements from /. were spam? What if you were a subscriber?

Re:So, what is the problem?

[HeronBlademaster]

I want my spam filter to be accurate. I would not mark something "spam" if it were not actually spam - and certainly not if it were from a mailing list I deliberately subscribed to.

That's a terrible idea, and the fact that people do it irritates me. I'm sure it's the reason Google's spam filter is not as accurate as it used to be.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[SanityInAnarchy]

I have no problem doing this at home, where the only account that it affects is my own. It's useful, for example, to avoid those mailing lists that people who know you inevitably put you on -- you know, the "Random link I found" list, the "Same Goddamned Joke I Just Got From Everyone Else, And Wasn't That Funny Last Year, Either" list, the "Upcoming Torah Services At Your Synagogue" list, the "Yet Another Attempt To Unsubscribe By Spamming The Whole Fucking Mailing List" crap, etc.

That is, not actually spam, because they actually know me, and must think I want to receive this stuff. But it's often easier to simply mark it as spam than to have to explain myself.

And I know that with my own filter, it will actually learn based on content -- so I won't get the Same Goddamned Joke, but I will get things I care about from the same person.

However, at work, we're on Gmail, so I don't do that -- especially because the signal/noise ratio isn't bad, and it's usually easy enough to create labels and filters. Amazon stuff goes in Amazon.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[SanityInAnarchy]

The determination of spam is based on whether you want it to continue or not.

That's not a simple boolean, and indifference doesn't mark it as spam. It might make it useless, but it doesn't make it spam.

A paying subscriber will know.

And what about the free subscribers?

Re:So, what is the problem?

[JustinOpinion]

I agree that people shouldn't mark as spam things they voluntarily signed up for (unless attempts to remove oneself from the list fail).

However, I think this also points out a way in which email could be made better. There should really be a standardized way to unsubscribe from mailing lists, so that every mail client automatically shows an "unsubscribe" button inside any mailing list email. The problem with current unsubscribe methods is that they require too much effort (even clicking a few links is "too much effort" in comparison to the "spam" button... moreover many sites make you go through numerous confusing web-forms). Also, an integrated "unsubscribe" button in an email client would send the "please unsubscribe" signal, and simultaneously add the address to a personal blacklist (but not add it to the spam detection list).

If you make it easy for people to use, then they will. The present problem arises largely from people's laziness. But you can't prevent people from being lazy, so instead the tools should adapt to people's common usage.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I can. Just because people are idiots who do idiotic things doesn't mean I have to be one too.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[easyTree]

Once again, I do not have mod points. I seem to have mod points, 25% of the time yet never when I actually want to use them...

Anyhow, +1 insightful.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[mysidia]

You gave them their e-mail addresss. They disclose how they will use your e-mail address if you provide it.

The messages are solicited.

Unsolicited is not a codename for anything I don't want.

Unsolicited means they found you and contacted you without you directly providing them with your contact information to 'subscribe' or as part of a business transaction.

Generally, solicited messages cannot be considered spam, except under extreme circumstances.

(Where the contact information is misused to send a massive volume of messages over a short period of time, without permission, for instance)

Re:So, what is the problem?

[lena_10326]

Huh? It's an OPT IN MAILING LIST, with a very deliberate signup process, you can't inadvertently or accidentally sign up. You have an interesting definition of what spam is, well not so much interesting as stupid.

You're assuming four things: 1) a live user is on the receiving end of the email, 2) coregistrations, 3) a newsletter today can never be spam tomorrow, 4) the opt-in accurately portrayed what the subscriber would get

1. Most users use disposable accounts to test a subscription to minimize spam, so this occurs regularly. This indicates a user wants access to a site in some fashion, probably temporarily. It's also indicative that the user doesn't want the email or wants to test the waters. This disposable account is in essence a dead account; email to a "dead" account is spam if you consider the ISP's perspective. If the newsletter was wanted, the user would either login and read it or transfer tit to a live email account. In that case, the account getting the email would be a live account.
2. Ever heard of co-registrations? You signup for website A and get auto-signed up for websites B, C, and D. The fine print was small so you missed it. By your definition, emails from B, C, and D are not spam, but the majority of people would disagree.
3. Consider the dot bomb. Many companies turned harmless newsletters into spam lists due to intense financial pressures. I know this because I witnessed numerous companies go this route. Opt-in yesterday does not mean opt-in for today.
4. Identifying spam is a subjective decision. You're operating with an assumption that opt-in gives the list owner full right to blast whatever they want to the subscriber because "The user opted-in! They asked for it!" What if the user signed up to an advice column, but got an email with 5% advice and 95% porn ads? Was the opt-in fair? NO. Most people would consider that spam.

You have an interesting definition of what spam is, well not so much interesting as stupid.

And you're ignorant. Rather than request clarification for something you did not understand, you cry "stupid" like a typical slashmonkey beating his chest. I hold these viewpoints because I have industry knowledge in this topic, which you were unaware of.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[lena_10326]

The reason people don't use the unsubscribe link is due to trust. Do you trust a spammer? Why would you when they've demonstrated they're untrustworthy. Even if they're not a spammer, you believe they are so the thought process is the same.

You click the Spam button instead. You trust your email provider more than a spammer. That's why.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[mysidia]

If no one is upset over its absence, then it indeed was spam. The determination of spam is based on whether you want it to continue or not. The lack of complaining subscribers suggests it wasn't.

No, that's not true: the keywords for determining spam are: solicitation and opt-in.

If you opted-in by joining something, then it is not spam, even if you don't want it, and are too ignorant to follow the opt-out directions. It becomes spam if you follow the opt-out directions, and the messages continue.

Strangely, some people actually want spam; I.E. some users complain about the new corporate spam filters, that they no longer get their "viagra ads" or "random stock tips" coming in...

In any event, if the mailing list mattered, there should eventually be some yahoo users upset they no longer get the messages.

Unfortunately, most won't have any idea that the reason they no longer get them is due to yahoo.

If they did, they would likely make efforts to switch to a competing webmail service (at least for delivery of that mailing list messages).

Effected readers would be unlikely to complaind to yahoo, because (A) large corporations are bureaucratic and make it too difficult to get a complaint like that one listened to by the right people, and (B) users don't know how to make the complaint, (C) corporations normally ignore complaints like that anyways, and (D) effected users would want an immediate resolution, which can only be obtained one way (by partially switching from yahoo to something else).

Re:So, what is the problem?

[blantonl]

Um, yes, actually. I'm kind of shocked that you even consider it a valid option. Does it not occur to you that this has the potential to impact other people, too?

Well, no shit Sherlock. Isn't that the point of the whole article in the first place?

The reality that the parent pointed out is there is an easy out for Yahoo Mail subscribers (and others as well). These day's unsubscribe processes are a pain in the ass at times, and being on the receiving end of 400 different methods to "unsubscribe" your account from a mailing list isn't fun these days.

It might hurt publishers, but it is a reality.

I'll use a prime example - somehow I got signed up on Texas Instruments DSP mailing list - and to unsubscribe I have to login to an account for which I have no idea what my credentials are. So, your "fucking clicks of a mouse" got tossed out the window like the rest of your argument.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Maestro4k]

An unsubscribe process takes more clicks then hitting 'mark as spam'. That's all the reason people need to use the spam button.

BULLSHIT

I get This is True, I have for over a decade now, and on my latest issue there's this tidbit available from one keypress (enter) at the bottom:

Message 4,496 has information associated with it that explains how to participate in an email list. An email list is represented by a single email address that users sharing a common interest can send messages to (known as posting) which are then redistributed to all members of the list (sometimes after review by a moderator).

List participation commands in this message include:

* A method to remove yourself from the list (Unsubscribe).

Select HERE to UNsubscribe.

One more keypress and I'd be unsubscribed. In fact it's easier than reporting it as spam is. People just don't CARE. Or they're just stupid, or perhaps both.

Can you honestly say you've never done it?

Yes I can, I'm not an idiot nor am a lazy asshole. If I can't get a list to unsubscribe me I'll report it, but at that point it IS spam. (And violating the toothless CAN-SPAM act to boot.)

Just because you're lazy and/or stupid doesn't mean most of us are.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Free the Cowards]

This is fundamentally a Human-Computer Interaction problem. Namely, the button is built to mark mail that is unsolicited advertisement, but is being used to mark any mail that is unwanted.

And it's a truism that in HCI you never blame the user. Not because it's never the user's fault, but because blaming the user is pointless. You can't change the user. You can't make him behave differently. You usually can't even educate him (they never read manuals or help or tooltips or any other form of instructions).

So yeah, you can say that it's the user's fault for using "Mark as Spam" instead of unsubscribing. But the fact is that they're doing it, and they're going to keep on doing it no matter what you say. Blaming them isn't going to fix anything. Instead, Yahoo needs to adapt to this and fix their code so that users who use "Mark as Spam" as a general "unwanted mail" button don't screw up the system.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Maestro4k]

There should really be a standardized way to unsubscribe from mailing lists, so that every mail client automatically shows an "unsubscribe" button inside any mailing list email.

There is, and This is True uses it, it's called the "List-Unsubscribe:" header.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[eugene ts wong]

Yes, me too. I'm shocked that there is anybody deliberately doing this. It's messing up the filters for all of us. It's clouding the problem, so that more spam can get in. I have no problems against legitimate senders.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[registrar]

An unsubscribe process takes more clicks then hitting 'mark as spam'. That's all the reason people need to use the spam button.

It's not the reason I do it. If I think an email is spam, I mark it as such. Regardless of how you get my email address, it's your responsibility not to spam me.

(If I sign up to an opt-in list thinking I'll get something I want, I sometimes get something useless---or, often enough, far too much of what I wanted. If I consider an email to be spam, I mark it as such. I consider it a legitimate form of protest, and at least as effective as contacting a company. OTOH if I consider an email to be legitimate but something I don't want, I unsubscribe.)

The problem in this case, is that Yahoo has requested and misinterpreted user feedback. People disagree on the definition of spam: I think something's spam and mark it as such-it's not your business to tell me I'm wrong. Yahoo might find my opinion interesting, and they are welcome to use their knowledge of whether I reported it however they like. But their algorithms need to be able to figure out whether an email is "spam for me" or "spam for everyone."

And another thing. Opt-out and opt-in are not binary things, they're on a spectrum. E.g. by doing XYZ (registering for a software update, entering a draw) you 'agree' or 'elect' to receive product information... I don't care if it's opt out or opt in, it's spam.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[eugene ts wong]

That's a good idea. It would also act as a moderation system. If I unsubscribe from something twice, then the system should regard that as spam. The first time would have been a legitimate unsubscribe, but the second time means that the sender wasn't being responsible. Hmm, actually, there could be no second time, because of the private black list. But still. Also, it would be a way to force senders to comply to a standard, or not get through to recepients.

You're quite smart. I'm actually impressed.

How would you deal with a user who wants to sign up again? If I have about 500 addresses on my black list, and if I'm too lazy to do anything other than click "Spam", then isn't it likely that I'll not sift through my black list to remove the address?

Re:So, what is the problem?

[zippthorne]

Because you're an ass. I've used the mark spam bit, too, but only for emails for which the unsubscribe link is neither present in the email, nor apparent on the website. In my view, if they obscure or don't even have a way for me to stop receiving emails, they become spam the moment I no longer desire to receive them.

Because I'm also an ass. Although slightly less of one.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[synfrog]

However, I think this also points out a way in which email could be made better. There should really be a standardized way to unsubscribe from mailing lists, so that every mail client automatically shows an "unsubscribe" button inside any mailing list email. The problem with current unsubscribe methods is that they require too much effort (even clicking a few links is "too much effort" in comparison to the "spam" button... moreover many sites make you go through numerous confusing web-forms). Also, an integrated "unsubscribe" button in an email client would send the "please unsubscribe" signal, and simultaneously add the address to a personal blacklist (but not add it to the spam detection list).

There is already a mechanism for this. It's called the List-Unsubscribe header, though only Hotmail does anything with it. The problem is a question of trust. A spammer can put in an unsubscribe link that says "Hey, this guy read my email, let's send him more crap!" Not only did you not unsubscribe, you just telegraphed the fact that the spam got to your inbox.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[zurkog]

It is in the nature of people to seek the shortest path to gratification.

...

Can you honestly say you've never done it?

Remind me never to swim in any pool this guy has ever been in...

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then there were three. . .

People really just want a way to read wanted messages, get rid of unwanted messages, and get rid of unwanted messages forever.

Some people still don't know what spam is, but know what the spam button does. There was the delete button to get rid of mail, then there was spam to get rid of mail--but stronger--and, now, there could be a third button, too--just for getting rid of a message. It might be better to have the spam button be better to take advantage of a behavior users already practice than to add another button--especially since there could be a way to distinguish mailing lists from spam using some universal system or matching algorithm--matching as in a mailing list is likely to resend from the same address and upon that match the unsubscribe link could be presented from the mail interface.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[lena_10326]

Spam is indeed boolean.

You have very few decisions available to you when you receive an email.

• Save it
• Delete it
• Flag it as spam

Detail: We'll assume you've already read it because you have to read it to decide which action to take. If you've not read it, then you've delegated that task to a filter that reads it for you by proxy. Unread email doesn't count. It's essentially in the queue waiting for you to make the decision. You can't make a decision on unread email so we ignore that case. We'll also ignore Forward and Reply to simply the problem.

Saving it means it's not spam. We're assuming you're saving it because you truly want to keep it and that we're not playing definition games with saying "you're saving it to report it later" type of nonsense. We're meaning exactly what we say.

Flag as spam clearly means it's spam

We have one option left, delete it. What does delete mean? I'm assuming you'll say it represents the indifference case, but how can one be indifferent yet perform a positive action? It's because thought is distinct from action, and it is thought that classifies spam, not action.

Deletion could mean a few things. That you've deemed it spam but wish not to flag it. This is a special case where it's clearly spam but your action implies something different. This supports the preceding conclusion: thought is distinct from action.

Other reasons are: that you've deemed it not spam and no longer need it, so the email had temporary value. That you weren't the intended recipient--an error on behalf of the sender. That you're uninterested in the product, request, message, inquiry, appointment, etc. (whatever the email contained). For all of these, they are cases where you believe the email was a one time occurrence that will not happen again, or that you believe the email was harmless, or that the email was not spam. None of these possibilities would lead one to believe the email was spam, so therefore it wasn't spam.

When you say the determination of spam is not a boolean case, you may be thinking of subjectivity rather than result of the decision: spam vs not spam. Although classifying spam is very subjective and there are no concrete criteria for determining "spamminess", it is a boolean classification once the decision is made. There may be a degree of spamminess, but there cannot be a 50/50 scenario where an email is half spam and half not spam. If you allow that definition to be valid then you allow ambiguity to enter your decision process, which is bad if you're trying to make consistent choices.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[TubeSteak]

You can't change the user. You can't make him behave differently. You usually can't even educate him (they never read manuals or help or tooltips or any other form of instructions).

We aren't born knowing how to drive cars or fly fighter jets.
In other words, the issue is one of motivation, not [what you said].

A sufficiently motivated user will overcome numerous obstacles in order to master the necessary Human-[Object] Interaction, no matter how arbitrary or irrational.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[MightyYar]

guilty. not of this particular list but of countless others

Rather than call you an inconsiderate ass like the others here, I'd point to you as an example of how IT doesn't take human nature into account when setting up systems. In this case, Yahoo was naive to think that they could depend on (L)user input to create a decent anti-spam system. AOL does the same stupid thing, BTW - even to the point where Florida's hurricane alerts were being flagged as spam.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[MightyYar]

The determination of spam is based on whether you want it to continue or not.

Nuh-uh.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[lena_10326]

If you opted-in by joining something, then it is not spam, even if you don't want it, and are too ignorant to follow the opt-out directions. It becomes spam if you follow the opt-out directions, and the messages continue.

My other reply addresses this thought. I do not wish to repeat, so I will refer to the other post. http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=634587&cid=24460737

Unfortunately, most won't have any idea that the reason they no longer get them is due to yahoo.

Effected readers would be unlikely to complaind to yahoo, because (A) large corporations are bureaucratic and make it too difficult to get a complaint like that one listened to by the right people, and (B) users don't know how to make the complaint, (C) corporations normally ignore complaints like that anyways, and (D) effected users would want an immediate resolution, which can only be obtained one way (by partially switching from yahoo to something else).

Why would someone contact Yahoo as a first step? A user of average intelligence would first contact the list owner because the list owner is the smaller organization. It's the one losing money due and thus motivated to solve the problem. More likely, the user would attempt to contact both.

If you're going to assume something is not occuring due to technological ignorance, then you must also consider those hurdles influence everything else one does on a PC: daily operation, connect to the internet, attain a Yahoo email account, submit a signup request, enter an activation code, etc. If they've accomplished those, they can surely locate the customer service address and send an inquiry (or demand for action).

Re:So, what is the problem?

[sortius_nod]

Actually, the people being hurt are the Yahoo users. If you think for one minute people are blind sheep maybe you need spend a bit more time away from your own little world and out in the thick of it.

I know myself if my mail providers started doing this I'd be moving my clients and my gaming clan/corp/guild away from those services. In fact, I'd make an extra special effort to show people how much Yahoo services suck.

While I am dead set against spam, this is NOT the answer. False positives are a good way to lock your company out, and give your competition the upper hand. By taking the typical neo-conservative idea of "we don't negotiate with " you are burning your bridges before you cross the river. Yahoo have always played second fiddle to the likes of Hotmail, and now Gmail, so acting like this will ensure that they fall even farther behind the competition.

Nice work Yahoo, way to burn your customers.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[eugene ts wong]

Remind me never to swim in any pool this guy has ever been in...

Remember to never swim in any pool that this guy has ever been in...

While you're at it, don't stand in the street when he is about to drive by. In fact, don't stand on the sidewalk either. Just do whatever it takes to get out of the way.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[SanityInAnarchy]

Flag as spam clearly means it's spam

Or it means you want to stop receiving them, but you're too lazy to unsubscribe.

Although classifying spam is very subjective and there are no concrete criteria for determining "spamminess", it is a boolean classification once the decision is made.

It is, however, not a definition which is common to all users. There are certain things that I like receiving notifications for, that I don't consider spam. And then there are things that other people see as perfectly alright, which I can't stand: "Send this to 10 people in the next 2 minutes and you'll meet the love of your life tomorrow!!!"

While there are things which we can all agree are spam (v14gr4), that should be the extent of the global classification system. It should not be used to block what could be legitimate email for someone else -- and it's quite possibly a UI issue that there's only one button to push, from within Yahoo Mail, to say "I don't want to get crap like this", which also means "Nobody should get crap like this."

Re:So, what is the problem?

[iamhigh]

Why are you blacklisting them? The people are unsubscribing, not saying they never want another email from that domain/email address.

Changing directions... Couldn't newsgroups or usenet or some mix fix this?

Re:So, what is the problem?

[lena_10326]

You're so wrong about your "determination of spam" that it hurts. Please leave the Internet

Then it would be a simple matter to prove it wrong. Since you couldn't, you must be a simpleton with low IQ.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[lena_10326]

You know.. I don't mind the overrated ratings even though that post is rated -1 to begin with, so how one could be overrated at -1 the lowest rating available (lol) God only knows. But, the Troll rating was just plain mean (as well as inaccurate). Heh.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Free the Cowards]

That only works if the user has a reason to overcome those obstacles. In this case, the user bears absolutely no consequences for his action, so he has absolutely no motivation to change.

If you allowed the user to drive a high-performance automobile after using his e-mail for a while, but only if he used the "Mark as Spam" button correctly, then maybe we'd see some change.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[eugene ts wong]

As far as I can recall, I don't actually blacklist anybody, but the idea is that they weren't responsive to the first attempt at unsubscribing. So, blacklisting them, after the first attempt, will at least prevent them from disturbing me.

A good real example is some kind of tech expo. I keep getting announcements from them. It's very annoying. They only let us unsubscribe from the announcement for the specific locale [e.g. we can unsubscribe from San Fransisco announcements, but not from the entire list]. We can argue about what is and is not spam, and in this example, it's probably just a lack of compliance, and not some kind of scam or anything deceptive, but blacklisting them would avoid any disturbances, and allow us to avoid a debate about what is and isn't spam.

Yes, they are unsubscribing, and yes they aren't saying that they never want anything from that domain. I'm just providing a specific solution for a specific problem. I understand that it's different when a domain has many lists.

I don't use newsgroups/usenet, so I can't say for sure. However, it does make sense. I think that having different technology for different situations is the right way to go. I don't understand why people keep abusing technology. I hate it. It messes things up for everybody.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[rekkanoryo]

There is already such a solution. It's called RFC 2369, and it dictates headers to be inserted into every message. It's existed for years; the problem is webmail and most mail client developers are too stupid or too selfish to implement support for these headers.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[lena_10326]

Or it means you want to stop receiving them, but you're too lazy to unsubscribe.

We're talking about whether spam is boolean. "Too lazy to unsubscribe" is completely irrelevant to this thread because it doesn't magically create a third state of email (spam/not spam/???). You're talking about a misuse of the tool which doesn't magically create a 3rd state of "spamness". The email in question is still spam or not spam. In this case it's just labeled incorrectly.

If your intention was to yank a point out of context just to disagree with something, then you're not saying much because you're arguing a different topic. Even if I played along, I can easily reject your point because if none of us can rely on the definition of Flag as Spam, then none of us can mount any sensible argument.

I could retort by saying "What if the user pressed Spam but meant to press Save?" That's a misuse of the tool. It's irrelevant in exactly the same way your case is irrelevant by sharing the fact that the email was mislabeled in error. It doesn't affect the topic at hand: is spam boolean?.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use the unsubscribe link *twice* for any given newsletter or mailing list I sign up for. Sometimes something fails, then if I get a third, I mark it as spam.

This generally isn't an issue, but some Brick and Mortar stores have some shoddy mailing practices.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is, and This is True uses it, it's called the "List-Unsubscribe:" header.

If the mail agents include an "Unsubscribe" button, based on this header (next to the "Report Spam" button), then I predict that spammers will start using this header, the header will become useless, and we're back at square one.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

The other poster is correct, you need to get off the Internet because it's people like you that are ruining it. Only a simpleton with low IQ thinks mail you don't want anymore is spam.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

You miss the point. The user would still recognize the difference between unsolicited email and email from a list they no longer wish to receive and click the correct button. It's a solution to the convenience problem whereby a user clicks the spam button just to make the email go away.

It's a good idea. It would be even better implemented if the List-Unsubscribe header were to be checked even when the spam button is clicked, querying the user if unsubscribing is really what they intended. The spam button doesn't need to be very convenient.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[SanityInAnarchy]

"Too lazy to unsubscribe" is completely irrelevant to this thread

I do, however, assert that it is not spam in that case. You said it:

The determination of spam is based on whether you want it to continue or not.

But you no longer seem to agree with that:

In this case it's just labeled incorrectly.

Indeed. But if I'm too lazy to unsubscribe, and hit the "spam" button again, that also implies I don't want the messages to continue -- which, by your definition, is spam.

Here's a boolean for you: Is that spam or not?

It doesn't affect the topic at hand: is spam boolean?

That question is obviously not specific enough. You appear to be arguing one of three things:

1: There is a universal definition of spam, and it is boolean.
2: Spam is defined by its subjective impact on the receiver. For a given receiver, spam is boolean.
3: Spam is defined by the label it's given. By this definition, anything Yahoo classifies as spam is, in fact, spam.

I don't think you're seriously entertaining #3. It's possible that you believe #1, which would follow from my "v14gr4" comment, but I think that would then become an overly narrow definition -- and still subjective.

Which leaves #2, which I still don't entirely agree with, since it's based on a false dichotomy. Maybe I want to continue receiving those messages, maybe I don't. Maybe I really don't care, one way or the other.

But that's the personal level. On a global level -- is there some property inherent to the email itself (if sent to multiple people) which defines it as spam or not? I'm arguing that there isn't -- that the best you can do is take a spectrum, and that's still going to be based on the subjective opinion of individuals.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[deepgrey]

Yeah, but blaming them makes me feel better.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[registrar]

You're confusing "unsolicited" with "spam." "Spam" is a subjective term, and means different things for different people, though we generally agree that factors like unsolicited, commercial, irritating, unwanted, impersonal, "mass", and antisocial contribute to the "spam" character of email. The law tries to limit spam by prohibiting the most easily defined and clearly damaging emails (e.g. those which are clearly fraudulent).

Yahoo also tries to limit spam, but they are not a judge and are interested in a social definition of spam. Yahoo is trying to discover what people (automatically) want removed from their inbox, without feeling any obligation to contact the sender. It turns out that lots of people don't want this email, and don't feel much obligation to the sender. Fair enough-if they think it's spam, then for them it is spam. Blaming the users for seeing things differently is just arrogant*.

Yahoo made the mistake of inferring that nobody wants this email and acting accordingly. The fault is Yahoo's, not the users who marked it as spam. Yahoo's algorithm should have noticed that lots of their users did not mark it as spam, and realised that they should treat it differently to penis enlargement emails.

*Requiring users to agree to your definition of spam so that it doesn't inconvenience other people is just absurd. You are always responsible for the behaviour of your system, whatever your users do. That is a basic principle of computer security, and applies to spam inference just as much as operating system kernel design. If you provide an easily-broken system and it breaks, you suck. Yes, you can hope that your users are not entirely antisocial or uncooperative, but ultimately users is as users does.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Free the Cowards]

Hard to argue with that!

Re:So, what is the problem?

[zerocool^]

Not to mention that CAN-SPAM requires a one-click valid unsubscribe link anyway... How hard is that compared to clicking "this email is spam"?

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be honest, it never would have occurred to me that marking something as "spam" would have an effect on anyone else. I had always assumed the "spam" label was confined to my own mailbox.

I won't abuse the spam button any longer, but how is the average Yahoo user supposed to know the harm they can do? It makes sense, but it's not common sense.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[theaceoffire]

I say we get rid of all mailing lists, and use RSS feeds.

Instant updates for all clients, anyone who doesn't want to hear about it anymore just has to delete their bookmark... and it never gets flagged as false positive.

Also, no mailing list = lots less spam.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[ThePiMan2003]

And you're ignorant. Rather than request clarification for something you did not understand, you cry "stupid" like a typical slashmonkey beating his chest. I hold these viewpoints because I have industry knowledge in this topic, which you were unaware of.

>

Wow you think really highly of yourself. Conveniently the original poster here is probably someone who has signed up for this list. In any case I AM someone who is a member of this very list (through a non-yahoo account thankfully). Only a very stupid ISP would enact policy 1. Otherwise anytime you had someone die, or just plain decide to stop using your crappy service you would suddenly start blocking legitimate emails.
Your point number 2 is interesting but very wrong in this case.
Point 3 is also invalid. And fairly stupid. So I opt-in to a mailing list and it starts spamming me... then maybe I should unsubscribe from that list. Just because I don't want something anymore does not make it spam. If the person has truly become a spammer then he won't honor your unsub request and then it becomes spam. It doesn't matter in this case because this list has not become a spam list. It is still the same content as it has always had.
And then we get to option 4... still not an issue in this case, there are many examples on the lists website (that you had to go to to sign up for the list in the first place). So anyone who does decide to subscribe should know exactly what they are getting.

In short, grow up, stop claiming special "industry knowledge" that is almost assuredly shared by most everyone reading this site. And please let me know where you work so I can make sure never to use your services.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[hardwarefreak]

That's all the reason people need to use the spam button. Can you honestly say you've never done it?

What's this 'spam button' to which you refer? Is this something you click, or a euphemism?

Is it like when I take the SMTP client IP from the header and add its /24 or /16 CIDR to my Postfix server's block list? :P

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

You miss the point. The user would still recognize the difference between unsolicited email and email from a list they no longer wish to receive and click the correct button. It's a solution to the convenience problem whereby a user clicks the spam button just to make the email go away.

Every spam message has a "click here to unsubscribe" link that confirms that the e-mail address is active, thereby condemning the user to more spam.

With this idea, the good caused by being able to unsubscribe from legitimate mailing lists, is cancelled by the bad of people clicking "unsubscribe" on spam. Which they will, in droves. Because, let's review: if people weren't stupid about spam, it wouldn't be profitable, and spammers would do something else.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[ikono]

Because TIT is indicative of every single unsubscribe method, amirite?

Re:So, what is the problem?

[lena_10326]

Indeed. But if I'm too lazy to unsubscribe, and hit the "spam" button again, that also implies I don't want the messages to continue -- which, by your definition, is spam.

I don't believe it's contradictory because they were two comments from two different contexts (the locally binding topics were different).

My two arguments:

1. A user interprets an email as spam if he received it and does not want it. The use of the "continue" word meant the email would be repeatedly sent and he wished it would stop. This was the essence of the original statement.
2. Proving there is exactly 2 types of email: spam and not spam. This was under the topic: is spam boolean?

You seem to be focused on the part inside #2 where I wrote that the type was mislabeled. I presume you're thinking Flag Spam -> labels email as spam -> email is mislabled -> email is not spam due to inversion, which violates argument #1.

The email in question is still spam or not spam. In this case it's just labeled incorrectly.

I would agree that "labeled incorrectly" was an oversight. It's not the thought I intended so I would modify it to say "may or may not be labeled incorrectly". My intention was not to determine spam or not spam inside the #2 argument. In fact I was trying to explicitly avoid that as evidenced by the previous comment "The email in question is still spam or not spam". Naturally, the conclusion in #1 would be invoked because the conclusion in #2 was purposely avoiding the conclusion made in #1.

That question is obviously not specific enough. You appear to be arguing one of three things:

On your list, I was arguing #2.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Dhalka226]

Perhaps, if what we're talking about was a random e-mail I found floating in my inbox. I certainly don't click those unsubscribe links for exactly the reason you describe.

If, on the other hand, it's from a mailing list I deliberately went through a several step process to sign up for... yeah, I'll click the link if I want to unsubscribe, so long as it looks like it's coming from the right place.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Artuir]

Yes, you are right. Apparently nobody here has gone through the trouble of attempting to unsubscribe from tens or hundreds of spam emails a day to see how successful it is.

I tried it and my spam problem actually got worse. A lot of places use unsubscribe methods that either utilize a fake/false/nonfunctional email address or web page addresses with "typos" in them, or they say they'll unsubscribe you and then let the other 20 spam fuckheads they do business with know that hey, someone actually monitors this address! Spam them more!

So no. Unsubscribing does not really work in 95% of cases. Try it.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[lena_10326]

Wow you think really highly of yourself

I'm called stupid and I defend myself, yet it is I who you decide to single out? Well fuck you. The tone of my response is always reactionary to whoever replies to my post. Don't blame me if someone gives me attitude and I shovel it back. If you (the royal you) don't like it, then don't start flinging shit at me first.

Only a very stupid ISP would enact policy 1. Otherwise anytime you had someone die, or just plain decide to stop using your crappy service you would suddenly start blocking legitimate emails.

Yahoo does this. Let your account go idle for several months. Your account will be gone. You are obviously quite ignorant on this matter.

Your point number 2 is interesting but very wrong in this case

What are your qualifications? Why is it wrong? Do you know I've written co-registration scripts? Do you even have a clue what a co-registration signup is? I don't think you do.

Or maybe.. you can't distinguish between an idea from an instance of an idea? Opt in mailing list from "This Is True" mailing list? Class versus object? Cookie cutter versus cookie? Any of that ringing a bell? Are you really that stupid?

Point 3 is also invalid. And fairly stupid

I'm not even going to bother responding to that one because you fail to distinguish between idea and instance again.

In short, grow up, stop claiming special "industry knowledge" that is almost assuredly shared by most everyone reading this site

What are your qualifications? I'm speaking from experience in the field of sending email and information gathering (adhering to CANSPAM laws). You have zero clue on what you're talking about. I'm beginning to suspect you're a troll playing games here. No one in IT could be that ignorant of what happened to the online advertising industry between 2000 and 2005. If you're not a troll, then you're a dumb ass. By the way, format your message right next time. It looked like a child put it together.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Maestro4k]

Because TIT is indicative of every single unsubscribe method, amirite?

Why no, it's not, in fact most of the legit mailing lists make it harder. But this is also irrelevant as the list in question here IS This is True, and its unsubscribe method is as easy (and often easier) than marking it as spam. That was the point.

As others have pointed out, it's easier to unsubscribe from all of Randy's lists than it is to subscribe to them. Subscribing requires the user to confirm that they indeed submitted their address to be subscribed, and it's always been that way.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[shri]

Absolutely, true. We deal with several sources of "Report Junk" abuse. - Community members who would rather click on "Report Junk" than click on unsusbcribe, because they're just too lazy. - Idle idiots who signed up to our community just because they were bored at some point (opted in..) and forgot they signed up. - People who read the newsletter and go ... "this is not useful" and mark it as junk. Yahoo in particular are a pain in the arse to deal with. Infact we recommend users to signup using gmail or hotmail and have banned a few dozen free email providers as they just create more problems than they solve.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[pimpimpim]

Some years ago I subscribed to an IBM mailing list, just to see if anything interesting was on it. My subscribe e-mail had a link to the unsubscribe page on a server, all later e-mails didn't. That already isn't a very good way of doing it. Last month I wanted to get rid of it, searched for my first e-mail, followed the link, 404 error. By being so sloppy with their mailing list practices, there is no better way then using the "this is spam" link.

Other example: my Gmail address is apparently very equal to the ones of some philippinan users and I get many subscribe e-mails and invites to mailing list that are popular in that community. Of course I never confirm those things, but in the case of Multiply "Secure and family friendly social networking", I got not only signed up without having to confirm, I also had no way to unsubscribe, and got all of a sudden a lot of e-mail from that multiply user's friends. I had it forwarded to the spambox. Then after a while, I got the mail from the "forgot password" button, and out of curiosity found that I could indeed log in with this. These are pretty amazingly bad internet practices, I contacted the site owner and actually got a reply back, apparently they had deliberately chosen to have users be able to log in for the first few weeks without them having to confirm their e-mail address. Web 2.0: the same mistakes all over again, but with new paint.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[MadJo]

problem with that solution is, who is to say that that email explaining the situation is coming from the same organisation.

Or do you also click on links in those emails you get from pay-pal.com, and from bank-of.us?

Re:So, what is the problem?

[blane.bramble]

Or it means you want to stop receiving them, but you're too lazy to unsubscribe.

We're talking about whether spam is boolean. "Too lazy to unsubscribe" is completely irrelevant to this thread because it doesn't magically create a third state of email (spam/not spam/???).

But it does! It creates a category "Not-Spam but tagged as it because I couldn't follow the correct procedure to stop receiving it". Consider, I sign up to a list - the emails are not spam. I decide I no longer want emails from that list, the emails are still not spam (they are not unsolicited at this moment, as I have not unsubscribed). I click "Spam". The email list will continue to send to me - I have not unsubscribed, therefore they are still not unsolicited, and therefore not spam. I am therefore receiving "not spam, but tagged as such because I did the wrong thing". That's a third category. If I had unsubscribed and THEN continued receiving the unwanted emails, they would be unsolicited, and clicking on "Spam" on subsequent emails would be justified.

Before you get on your high-horse about your industry knowledge, yes I AM an email admin.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[joto]

It's a good idea. It would be even better implemented if the List-Unsubscribe header were to be checked even when the spam button is clicked, querying the user if unsubscribing is really what they intended. The spam button doesn't need to be very convenient.

This is a most silly idea. Perhaps the silliest ever. The SPAM button HAS to be convenient. There's no way I as a user would accept a mail client where I'd have to jump through hoops to mark something as spam.

Furthermore, just about all spam I receive includes a way to "unsubscribe". The trouble is, these "unsubscribe"-links marks my address as active at the spammer, which means he can now list my address as "verified" the next time he sells an email-address CD to other spammers. So in other words, making "unsubscribing" from email easier by adding support for it in the MUA is simply a recipe for even more spam.

The only way to fix this is for Yahoo to revise their policy, either by increasing the threshold for publicly marked spam well above 20%, or by actually doing something when people complain. Remember, it's Yahoo who has done something wrong here, they made the policy, not their users. Alternatively, their users need to move elsewhere.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[foobsr]

an example of how IT doesn't take human nature into account when setting up systems

The phenomenon is presumably not limited to the realm of IT (or simply: stupidity rules).

CC.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[foobsr]

Apparently nobody here has gone through the trouble of attempting to unsubscribe from tens or hundreds of spam emails a day to see how successful it is. I tried it and my spam problem actually got worse. (emphasis mine)

This is why once upon a time there was a rule that one should never react to 'spam'.

CC.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[penix1]

The fix is simple then. Don't accept "throw away" email addresses for list subscriptions. This would include yahoo, hotmail and gmail. If they are interested enough, they will use a real email address.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[SirShmoopie]

so you freely admit that it takes two clicks to unsubscribe? That, in case you were wondering, is more than one.

Do not underestimate the unwillingness of web users to choose one click over two.
Besides, not every mailing list is so easy, notably some commercial offerings with their login to unsubscribe thing.

If gmail and other email providers had an 'unsubscribe' button next to the 'mark as spam' button then people would probably use it, but not before.

Until then you're railing against human nature, and you'll lose.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Having a page to OPT IN doesn't mean it isn't a spamming site. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Perhaps manually going to a site and poking around could give a better idea on legitimacy. But... that costs a lot of time. Are you volunteering to manually go check each and every "This is spam" claim to see if that site APPEARS OPT IN or not?

Why would you expect anybody to manually verify another's site process? There is a reason the checks/balances are automated. Yahoo being adamant about not dealing with "spammers" may be a bit harsh, but is THEIR right to do so.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Dan541]

What would you consider a "real" email address?

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Dan541]

A fucked up spam filter is a sympton of useing crappy email solutions.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Dan541]

I can honestly say I have never falsely reported something as Spam.

If I ever was that lazy I would hit "block" rather than anything else.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Dan541]

I just noticed now that firefox has no "block sender " option.

Mayb we should bring back the ability for users to block senders rather than have the idiots abuse the spam button.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[RealGrouchy]

There is, and This is True uses it, it's called the "List-Unsubscribe:" header.

While I'm not entirely sure how the "List-Unsubscribe:" header works, a few of the lists I'm on (and have asked to be removed from) have a "to be removed from this list, send a message with 'remove' in the subject line to a@list.com"

Unfortunately, most of these lists have me on one of the dozen or so aliases that points to my e-mail address, and I have no idea which one it is because it was a former recipient of that alias that subscribed.

Even the ones that encode the recipient e-mail address into the headers don't remove me from their list despite repeated requests--because they're too harebrained to understand that it's not my gmail address I want removed, it's one of the aliases.

So *those* people I mark as spam.

- RG>

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Cro Magnon]

gmail IS my real email. My ISP email was a spam bucket when I got it, and I haven't been on it for so long that I don't even remember my username/password. Though I do agree that yahoo and hotmail should probably be banned.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you talking about the List-Unsubscribe header that practically all messages from mailing lists include (and which almost no e-mail software supports)?

Re:So, what is the problem?

[ThePiMan2003]

Yahoo does this. Let your account go idle for several months. Your account will be gone. You are obviously quite ignorant on this matter.

That is not what I am talking about. I have no problem dumping all of them email going to a canceled account. However, I DO have a problem with then marking all of that mail as SPAM and blocking it from my other paying customers. It would be very stupid of an ISP to use a canceled account as a honeypot for SPAM because there is a strong possibility that legitimate email is still being sent there. Once again there is a difference between email that is no longer wanted by one particular person and email that is not wanted by anyone.

What are your qualifications? Why is it wrong? Do you know I've written co-registration scripts? Do you even have a clue what a co-registration signup is? I don't think you do.

I am glad that your an admitted spammer. Anyone who has been on the web any amount of time has seen PLENTY of co-registration signup's.

Or maybe.. you can't distinguish between an idea from an instance of an idea? Opt in mailing list from "This Is True" mailing list? Class versus object? Cookie cutter versus cookie? Any of that ringing a bell? Are you really that stupid?

Actually since we are discussing this particular instance... the This Is True mailing list all of my points are about this particular instance. I am sure there are scummy people out there Randy Cassingham is not one of them (at least not as far as his list is concerned I have never met him in real life).

What are your qualifications? I'm speaking from experience in the field of sending email and information gathering (adhering to CANSPAM laws).

Since you were so nice as to ask. I have had to deal with both sides of this issue. I have been in charge of the email systems of a major regional construction firm for about 12 years now, and have had to deal with all sorts of SPAM and a group of people who generally were not Internet savvy enough to avoid winding up on the lists us just about anyone who ask for their information. Also, I run a couple of websites that try to respond to user query's via email (end user asks us a question, an automated script responds to that question with the information they want), I have spent a LARGE amount of my time as of late trying to get Yahoo to deliver email that is requested by their clients to them.

If you're not a troll, then you're a dumb ass. By the way, format your message right next time. It looked like a child put it together.

Is this a little easier for you to read?

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you make it easy for people to use, then they will. The present problem arises largely from people's laziness. But you can't prevent people from being lazy, so instead the tools should adapt to people's common usage.

Yes, but let's not rush too quickly to blame the users. I suppose since we're quoting the admin here, I have to take his word for it. But, remember that we frequently tell users not to click on the "unsubscribe" link on something they don't recognize, because spammers just use that to verify that an address works, and increase the volume. That's a rule that I had my Grandmother learn, since I can't trust her to really tell the difference between spam and legitimate mass-mailings (she falls for those mortgage mailings every time.)

Also, how many times have you unsubscribed from something (even something legitimate) and had it never process? I certainly still get Half.com emails about a wish list I made about 8 years ago, even though I've tried to unsubscribe multiple times. At some point you just have to click on the "Report Spam" button.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

There should really be a standardized way to unsubscribe from mailing lists, so that every mail client automatically shows an "unsubscribe" button inside any mailing list email.

How about an Anti-Spam button? How about if Yahoo/AOL/Gmail sent you the email, but with a notice at the top that says "Other users have reported this as spam. Agree / Disagree"? They you can choose to have this ambiguously-spammy email continued to be delivered to you.

Gmail already does a good job with potential phishing emails. Not only do they make it easy to report, but I have gotten at least one with a similar notice at the top that cautions to be wary of the message/sender. Can't we do something similar for spam?

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Beardo the Bearded]

This is True goes directly to my "real" ISP-based email address.

The point is that the list isn't spam at all. It's an opt-in list. Did you know that the spam primer was written by Randy Cassingham?

True has outlasted just about any online venture you can name. It's probably older than /. He never sells email addresses, never put HTML or graphics in the emails, or anything else. I first read the list when my email client was PINE.

Yahoo is in the wrong, and that's the whole point here. The yahoo users who WANT the list are, in fact, being cheated by other yahoo users.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Tripledub]

I have a similar issue with yahoo. We have people sign up for classes then mark the email they receive with their information as spam. This means that tech support gets to field calls because yahoo bans also by IP. No one that uses yahoo gets their login information and every one of them calls. Emails to the administration "team" result in form mail back telling me to email them if I want more help. Damnit! I can't email them from the email they want me to email from because they have it blocked. They just don't give a damn.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a most silly idea. Perhaps the silliest ever. The SPAM button HAS to be convenient. There's no way I as a user would accept a mail client where I'd have to jump through hoops to mark something as spam.

How often do you click the spam button? Does it really need to be a single-click, no-confirmation thing? If so, why? What is the frequency with which you mark email as spam?

Furthermore, just about all spam I receive includes a way to "unsubscribe". The trouble is, these "unsubscribe"-links marks my address as active at the spammer...

So use your powers of recognition and unsubscribe only from those email lists to which you subscribed. If you don't remember, take a moment to visit the website and jog your memory. It should be fairly easy to discern between the two.

The only way to fix this is for Yahoo to revise their policy

Yahoo is but one email service provider. If you depend on them you become dependent on their service. It is better to educate the user and give them the tools necessary to further educate themselves. That is the only true solution.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[harp2812]

For people running mail lists, sending bulk mail or whatever... they have ways to keep this from happening.

Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, etc usually provide bulk mailer feedback loops to prevent this sort of thing. When a recipient marks your mail as spam, the sender is notified so they can remove that recipient from their list.

Basically, you just unsubscribe the whiners. Works surprisingly well.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm kind of shocked that you even consider it a valid option. Does it not occur to you that this has the potential to impact other people, too?

It's possible that some users aren't aware that this affects other people, too. For example, marking things as spam in Thunderbird just marks them in my Thunderbird account, on my profile. It's a personal filter.

Supposedly, my webmail has a personal spam filter, too (in addition to the more overarching spam filter they use for everyone). How do I know if my webmail provider is using my personal spam filter to affect other people's filters or not?

Also, one thing that I rarely see addressed is the issue of gray mail. I have plenty of mail that arrives in my inbox or my spam folder (not marked by me) that is from addresses that I have legitimate contact with, where I have consented to let them contact me, and yet is not on a topic relevant to my interests.

Do I unsubscribe and skip all newsletters from that contact? Do I mark it as spam and try to filter out just the messages I don't need? Or do I just suck it up and sort the ham and the not-quite-spam side-by-side forever?

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Rary]

These day's unsubscribe processes are a pain in the ass at times...

The key words there are "at times". You see, not all unsubscribe processes are painful. Many of them involve a simple reply or a simple click on a single link -- which is exactly the same amount of effort as clicking the "spam" button.

Instead of being so fucking lazy that anything more than one click is considered to be too much effort, all it takes is this: follow the instructions (ie. click the "unsubscribe" link or hit "reply", whatever it is). If this works, great. Now you haven't messed up anyone else, you don't have to worry about not receiving emails that you actually did sign up for but forgot, and there's no problem if you later decide to sign up again. If, however, that simple act turns out not to be enough (ie. they start trying to make you jump through hoops), then take alternate measures.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[halcyon1234]

You mean a newsgroup?

Re:So, what is the problem?

[the_B0fh]

Interesting how you like calling people ignorant when you obviously know nothing about the mailing list. I've been on it in the past. Your "1, 2, 3, 4" may apply to generic mailing lists but does not apply to this. Oh, wait... let me quote someone:

Rather than request clarification for something you did not understand, you cry "stupid" like a typical slashmonkey beating his chest.

Oh yeah, by the way, that

I hold these viewpoints because I have industry knowledge in this topic, which you were unaware of.

- the invisible slashdot users support me via email, so there.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Awptimus Prime]

I didn't say his list was spam, only that people are stupid for depending on free email services, bitching and whining about how they operate, etc. If you want "free" then you get what you paid for.

It's funny how people like to ask "did you know....?" garbage when all I was doing was stating a simple, used to be well-known fact that has been forgotten by this generation of people on the Internet.

Please pay attention.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[fluch]

"The person being hurt is the mailing list owner..."

I don't agree. If the subscribers to the mailing list use crappy e-mail accounts it is not the mailing list owners fault...

Re:So, what is the problem?

[moreati]

I didn't say that the mailing list owner was to blame. I said that he or she is the one being harmed.

The mailing list owner has fewer eyeballs, that usually will mean lower advertising revenue.

Re:So, what is the problem?

[Pollardito]

One more keypress and I'd be unsubscribed. In fact it's easier than reporting it as spam is. People just don't CARE. Or they're just stupid, or perhaps both.

I haven't seen anyone mention this, but it's quite possible that people don't know that the Spam button will cause email to be blocked for other users. If they think it will just cause Yahoo to filter further emails to themselves, then as far as they're concerned it's equivalent to unsubscribe.

Mailing list receipts

[moreati]

I wish we had some widespread way of verifying a mailing list subscription, or cessation thereof.

I would allow this mailing list to prove to yahoo that the subscriptions are real. Also, for the subscribers that did tag it spam to automatically unsubscribe & later prove that they unsubscribed.

I receive too many emails, months after I provide my address to a site. After this time I think I ticked the 'no junk mail' box, but I cannot verify it to myself or to anyone else. Equally when I find the unsubscribe option, it's often a web link that provides no record to me that I unsubscribed.

I don't care how it's done, I just wish it were so. Alex.

Re:Mailing list receipts

[PC and Sony Fanboy]

the REAL story here is ... "How do I poison the yahoo spam list to ignore email from large, legitimate companies?" ... because it seems to be working well by accident. Maybe someone could monetize this? (Of course, that makes it a denial of service attack, and probably not legal... but...)

Re:Mailing list receipts

[rfuilrez]

Simple.

• Create thousands of Yahoo mail accounts,

• Subscribe to said companies mailing list

• Mark as spam

• ???

• Profit!

Re:Mailing list receipts

[ksd1337]

Well, you won't be making profit, but those companies will be losing profit.

Re:Mailing list receipts

[strabes]

I wish we had some widespread way of verifying a mailing list subscription, or cessation thereof.

Don't RSS feeds accomplish this because people can subscribe and unsubscribe at will? I'm on the mailing list of several missionaries from my church but would much prefer them to just open a blog and let me subscribe via RSS instead of sending me emails. Easier for me (fewer emails to check), easier for them (no need to maintain a large database of contacts & email addresses, many of which are probably out of date.) With RSS feeds, nothing is ever out of date and you can be sure everyone that is supposed to be getting your content actually is getting your content. I guess the only disadvantage of RSS feeds is that one has to be reasonably technologically savvy to even know what they are, let alone use them.

Re:Mailing list receipts

[maglor_83]

If you're a competitor to said company, it could well make you a profit.

Re:Mailing list receipts

[bhtooefr]

Also, with RSS feeds, it's harder to get an accurate count of subscribers. Not impossible, mind you, but harder.

Re:Mailing list receipts

[dstates]

Well it may not work for money, but it can be a successful way to suppress opposition information in a political campaign.

Tell your followers to subscribe to your opponents blogs and mailing lists

Wait for a big event

Put out your press release

Tell all of your follows to hit the "This is SPAM" button on all of the opposition blogs and mailing lists

Voila - your message goes out and the opposition is silenced for at least few days until they get their mailing lists and blogs back on line.

Re:Mailing list receipts

[eugene ts wong]

I agree. I'm surprised that RSS hasn't taken the world by storm.

Re:Mailing list receipts

[Maestro4k]

Don't RSS feeds accomplish this because people can subscribe and unsubscribe at will?

Most well run mailing lists accomplish this as well, This is True (and indeed all of Randy's mailing lists) make this quite simple. Unsubscribing is easier than subscribing in fact. You have to confirm that you requested to subscribe to actually get on the list in the first place.

I guess the only disadvantage of RSS feeds is that one has to be reasonably technologically savvy to even know what they are, let alone use them.

The big disadvantage of RSS feeds to me is it's another application to run if you want to manage them well (built in browser support is nice, but doesn't really cut it for checking them regularly, much less tracking stuff that drops off the feed before you have a chance to read it). Even if you use something like Google Reader it's still an additional thing to do to get the content. I check my E-mail multiple times a day, mailing lists are more convenient to me as I'm already going to be using my E-mail client.

Besides, This is True predated RSS by a rather lengthy amount of time, and RSS isn't suitable for the premium/free versions that This is True has.

Re:Mailing list receipts

[TheLink]

This would be harder if Yahoo gave each mail account a "trust" weighting, which is used to weight the account's "This is Spam" vote.

A new account's weight should start at zero or near zero. As time goes by and the numbers of email messages received go up and the decisions are counter checked (with those of existing trusted accounts), the trust weighting could go up (or back down).

If you sign up for lists and promptly mark them as spam, you get marked as zero trust (or even untrustworthy).

Sure someone could try to create thousands of mail accounts and sign them up on various lists and wait a year to gain a trust level before bombing a particular list.

Yahoo could flag those accounts after that though, so you'll have to start all over again.

Yahoo could also flag those accounts way before that if it thinks those accounts are bot controlled - and you won't KNOW till you try bombing the list and possibly failing.

After all there are ways Yahoo could use to detect that those accounts are bot controlled or not, even during the sign up process - after all Yahoo could actually choose to let some bots sign up ( if they try to send spam, Yahoo could flag them as spam senders right from the start and take special measures).

Re:Mailing list receipts

[electrictroy]

One way to fix this problem is for legitimate readers of this list (like me), to go into their spam folders and mark these maillist messages as "not spam", which will tell Yahoo to pass the messages to the Inbox. If I were the owner of this list, I would instruct my readers to do exactly that:

"To ensure continued delivery of this mailing list, please click 'not spam' in your email program. Thank you."

Re:Mailing list receipts

[Anonymous Coward]

RSS feeds are a fine substitute for a single-author mailing list (or a very small number of authors), but many mailing lists are more discussion oriented, where everyone who receives it is also allowed to post and reply. I've seen people try to replicate that through a blog, and the results were not pretty. Forum software is a somewhat more sensible approach, but that has its own issues.

Re:Mailing list receipts

[Zwoop]

It's fortunately not that simple, try it and you'll see. Y! clearly is not this stupid to let anyone mark anything as spam.

Re:Mailing list receipts

[MPAB]

How many people read the 200+ messages in their spam folder before pressing DELETE ALL?

Kinda sounds like the "don't read this if you're not the intended recipient" message usually found AT THE BOTTOM of most corporate emails.

Re:Mailing list receipts

[makomk]

The trouble is that apparently the messages aren't even reaching the spam folder - they're being blocked outright. This makes it basically impossible to do anything about it.

Predating?

[Mishotaki]

So he was trying to hunt down Yahoo? I think the hunter got hunted.

Re:Predating?

[im_thatoneguy]

American Heritage Dictionairy:
[quote]predate (pr-dt')
tr.v., -dated, -dating, -dates.
To mark or designate with a date earlier than the actual one: predated the check.
To precede in time; antedate.[/quote]

Re:Predating?

[Yath]

Joke n. that thing going whoosh over your head!

I kid!

double standard

[nategoose]

I'm all the time clicking "this is spam" on stuff that Yahoo sends to my yahoo account, but I still get it. What's up with that?

Re:double standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats because they know you're p3n1s really is that small.

Re:double standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you go into your Yahoo! notification preferences and turn off the items you don't want to get there?

Re:double standard

[Shadow Wrought]

I'm all the time clicking "this is spam" on stuff that Yahoo sends to my yahoo account, but I still get it. What's up with that?

Me, too. They also started throwing all the moveon e-mails and tor e-mails into the spam folder as well. So is yahoo not delivering the mail at all, or just throwing it straight into folks spam folder?

Re:double standard

[TheRealMindChild]

Yeah. Must not be a very smart learning machine... I've flagged everything in my yahoo inbox as spam for years, that had anything that wasn't an english lower-ascii charactor, and I'll be damned, that is what 99% of my spam still is.

Re:double standard

[gEvil (beta)]

Not sure. I opted out of all the Yahoo! stuff in the preferences a long time ago, and I don't get anything from them.

Re:double standard

[Anonymous Coward]

as someone who works for a spammer that has dealings with yahoo, take my word for it: all you're doing is verifying to the spammers that you exist.

Re:double standard

[jacquesm]

I think I understand why you posted that one anonymous...

Re:double standard

[Sleepy]

Hint: People are deliberately signing up for MoveOn lists, then flagging it as spam.

This is not news - it's a pretty well-known competitive dirty trick.

Re:double standard

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

I will donate the money to get that fixed, as soon as my Nigerian prince friend sends me my share of his father's estate. Still waiting...

Re:double standard

[k8to]

1 - 1998-ish? I deliberately signed up for moveon.
2 - I read it for years, but it got more screechy.

3 - 2001-ish - I tried to unsubscribe, twice. Tis failed twice.
4- I began using "mark as spam" on moveon mail because it was UNWANTED bulk email, which is basically spam.

5- 2002ish - Bored of marking their mail as spam, I tried unsubscribing again and it worked.

That's the end of my story.

Re:double standard

[Inquisitor911]

There's another reason for everyone to switch to Gmail.

Re:double standard

[SanityInAnarchy]

Doesn't work for Hotmail, either, which is especially annoying, considering my IM client will then spam me, telling me that I've got mail.

Re:double standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Hint: People are deliberately signing up for MoveOn lists, then flagging it as spam.

This is not news - it's a pretty well-known competitive dirty trick.

And by people you mean the Vast Right-wing Conspiracy(TM).

Re:double standard

[burdock]

Do you remember that survey of interests you probably filled out? Did you fully read your Terms of Service? Mail providers generally have clauses that allow them, their partners, partners of partners, etcetera ... to send you mail. They make money on advertising this way. Buried somewhere deep in the TOS, you agreed to it.

Re:double standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Yahoo's cheerfully delivering dozens of "Canad1an Pharmaceut1cal5 CHE,AP" to my inbox.
 
That's why there's Gmail. When you get tired of spam and need a filter that works...

Re:double standard

[1u3hr]

Me, too. They also started throwing all the moveon e-mails and tor e-mails into the spam folder as well. So is yahoo not delivering the mail at all, or just throwing it straight into folks spam folder?

Though there is no explicit "white list" for Yahoo mail, if an address is in your address list, it will not be marked spam.

Took me a long while to work that out, as I hardly ever send mail from their web interface and so never used the address list for that. So now when I check through my spam folder (about once a week) and find a false positive, I add the address to my list.

Re:double standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed.. People do this shit constantly, doesn't matter on the service.

Here's the big kicker:

Yahoo supposedly has a program like AOL that you can get feedback. Last time yahoo made it's draconian efforts to block spam, you could sign up for this list. Then they decided to close it due to it not being adequate and continue to block legitimate messages. Basically, these providers (AOL/etc) need to take the "Spam" button with a little grain of salt, as legitimate email gets blocked quickly and easily in leiu of people being lazy to unsubscribe.

One way to get more email through yahoo is to have your emails signed with domain keys. That's a sure help. Between that and scripting to hammer them through.

Worse yet... Easiest provider to work with for email? Microsoft. Have an SPF record, sign up once, they'll make some suggestions, but it's absolutely painless. No hoops to jump through like AOL/Yahoo/etc.

Re:double standard

[jagdish]

A friend of mine signed me up for a stupid software called globe7, which is the worst piece of doo doo ever. And no matter how many times I've marked it's emails as spam, yahoo still puts it in my mailbox. I've even set filters for that email and nothing works.

Re:double standard

[Threni]

I click on `mark as spam` in gmail quite often. If an email doesn't have an unsubscribe, or it has an unsubscribe which takes me to the site's front page and expects me to hunt for the log in option, which then possibly doesn't work because I have no idea what the password is any more, it's spam.

Stick a link at the bottom of every email so I can perform a one click unsubscribe, or you're getting marked as spam when I don't want to receive it any longer.

Re:double standard

[FormOfActionBanana]

No. The move-on fuckers kept sending me crap years after I asked to be removed from their list.

I let them know nicely several times, but they didn't keep their data together and spammed me.

Re:double standard

[FormOfActionBanana]

I'm retarded. I meant to reply to http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=634587&cid=24460157.

Re:double standard

[Lincolnshire Poacher]

> There's another reason for everyone to switch to Gmail.

No, not really. The problem here is one of lack of endeavour on the part of the users combined with their complete ignorance of and indifference to the consequences of their actions.

Moving the entire set of users to another service will result in the propagation of the problem. Where do you suggest that subscribers move once Google Mail's global filters have been trained to regard this list as spam? An indivual will always be at the mercy of the majority on such a service.

For anyone who truly relies on e-mail, the only viable alternative is to manage one's own e-mail service. Shock! Horror! this will require time and expense and it also means taking responsibility for protecting one's investment by considered and sensible use of e-mail addresses; does that shopping site really require one's personal address or would a use-and-delete alias suffice?

Re:double standard

[Ilgaz]

It could also be people are stupid to remember they signed up for it at first place.

That is the problem of the "This is spam" function on general end user mail service. They shouldn't be opportunistic and silently ignore "This is spam" false alerts from some idiots who doesn't know what the consequences would be.

If they (MoveOn) have "double opt-in" documented at http://nct.digitalriver.com/ecm/doihowto/ , Yahoo has no excuse. It is not like User won't claim it is spam, they will do it. You will have first hand verification of that guy clicked that link. If a political/evil plot is going on, you will also have a good proof too.

Re:double standard

[jotok]

Sure, making it easy to unsubscribe is good design.

However, what you have described is not spam, but rather a person too lazy to follow the unsubscribe procedures...that is, precisely the type of assclowns who have gotten This is True blacklisted. Your laziness does not relieve you of responsibility.

Re:double standard

[Threni]

Some sites make it deliberately hard to unsubscribe. Sometimes it is quite hard to find the logon for a site, and having logged on (assuming you know the password you used - and if you don't then you have to go through another level of crap to have it reset before you can unsubscribe) it can then be hard to find the unsubscribe option. You might have to unsubscribe for the whole site, rather than simply unticking what should be a clearly indicated `receive emails` checkbox. I'd agree with you if all this were made simple for the user, but if you're busy and the site owner has not thought through the whole `unsubscribe` thing then they'd better get used to people taking the path of least resistance. Really, as an end user I just want the emails to stop - I don't want to spend 5 mins faffing around.

Re:double standard

[meringuoid]

If they (MoveOn) have "double opt-in"

Terminology quibble: 'confirmed opt-in' is preferred. 'Double' implies that a subscriber has to opt in twice, and also implies that there exists such a thing as 'single opt-in'.

Analogy: when you have to enter a user name AND a password as well, do you call it double log-in? Or do you consider it only a single log-in, and accept the necessity to prove that you actually are who you say you are as a basic security requirement? Well, it's the same with opt-in to mailing lists. An opt-in without a confirmation step is no opt-in at all.

Re:double standard

[meringuoid]

However, what you have described is not spam, but rather a person too lazy to follow the unsubscribe procedures.

Not everybody who has email also has web access. Putting the unsubscribe facility on an entirely separate system is unacceptable. Requiring people to jump through hoops to unsubscribe is typical spammer behaviour.

Re:double standard

[crenshawsgc]

"Your laziness does not relieve you of responsibility." Respoinsibility of what, exactly? Guaranteeing some ad-ridden email senders' "Right to profit"?

Re:double standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Hint: People are deliberately signing up for MoveOn lists, then flagging it as spam.

This is not news - it's a pretty well-known competitive dirty trick.

That happened to me with Spamcop a few years ago when I had a fairly popular email newsletter. It was confirmed opt-in. You had to provide an address, then confirm the subscription from that address.

Web host admin contacts me to say I've gotten a shared server blacklisted. I go to see wtf. From what I could tell, it looked like just two people submitted about two months worth of newsletters all at once as spam.

Spamcop just accepted the complaints as if they were accurate, did nothing to verify them and added the server's IP address to their public blacklist. Took a rather large amount of yelling to get it fixed.

At one point, I said "Fine. Can the 100,000 of you that did manage to receive this newsletter please email Spamcop and inform them they screwed up? Thanks."

I don't think they liked that very much, but the IP was delisted the next day.

Re:double standard

[PastaLover]

And by people you mean the Vast Right-wing Conspiracy(TM).

No no it's the Liberally Biased Mainstream Media(TM). They wanna destroy moveon.org because well, who wouldn't? :P

Re:double standard

[NeoSkandranon]

Not everybody who has email also has web access.

Such as...?

Re:double standard

[meringuoid]

Such as...?

People behind unusually restrictive filters. People in remote areas with bad or intermittent connections. People working on mobile devices with full POP connectivity but limited or no web browser. If you're at a polar research station relying for your email connection on a satellite that's only visible for half an hour a day, you won't appreciate being told to visit some damn website to get somebody to stop mailing you.

In general, you can't safely assume that someone with access to one internet protocol also has access to any other.

Re:double standard

[Anonymous Coward]

How did you sign up in the first place, dipshit?

Re:double standard

[meringuoid]

How did you sign up in the first place, dipshit?

What, you've never been added to a mailing list you didn't ask for, whether by mistake or by malice? Wow. You must be new.

So, er... Hi. Welcome to the Internet!

Re:double standard

[electrictroy]

What kind of computer has email, but no web access?

This isn't 1995 anymore. All modern computers have some kind of web browser.

Re:double standard

[electrictroy]

Or:

Just turn-off the spam filtering. It doesn't take that long to scan one's subject list and click the little checkbox next to the obvious spam subjects. Then click delete.

That's better than having important mail disappear. I received email from an amazon customer that disappeared into Yahoo's spam filtering. The customer was angry because I responded to his first email, but none of this later replies, but I explained it was not my fault (I never saw the replies). Now I have the spam filtering turned off.

Re:double standard

[electrictroy]

Nobody forced you to sign-up. If you are too lazy to follow the unsubscribe procedure, then you never should have signed onto "This Is True" in the first place.

As for spamlists:

You're wasting your time filling-out unsubscribe requests. Even if they honor your request, they still sell your information as a "confirmed valid" address to other companies, thereby tripling or quadrupling your spam. Better to just keep silent and leave them wondering if you're real or fake.

Re:double standard

[jotok]

How did they subscribe to the list if the subscribe/unsubscribe features are on an inaccessible system?
If someone signed up and failed to unsubscribe before they went into an area with limited access, why do you think the list admins should still get punished?

Re:double standard

[jotok]

But you haven't justified your reaction, only explained your 'laziness' in greater detail.

If you want to unsubscribe from a legitimate list, there is a procedure. It should be clear but simply because it isn't doesn't mean you get to punish the list admin for it. If this is a huge issue for you then you should look into how you unsubscribe BEFORE you subscribe (I know, I know..."as the end user you just want the e-mails to start--you don't want to spend five minutes reading the rules...")

Re:double standard

[jotok]

Well, at the moment we're discussing users mislabeling legitimate mailing lists as "spam," not spam itself.
I don't think anyone would have a problem with you sending v1@gr4 pitches into the bit bucket, but in this case we're discussing a mailing list YOU SIGNED UP FOR that you are too lazy to unsubscribe from. So in effect the person who maintains the list gets punished. Since you AGREED to the ads in order to support the list, you have no grounds for complaint.

This is just another example of people wanting a free lunch. You can get a cheap lunch, you can even get a really GOOD cheap lunch, but you cannot have a free lunch, understand?

Re:double standard

[rizzo320]

Not everybody who has email also has web access. Putting the unsubscribe facility on an entirely separate system is unacceptable. Requiring people to jump through hoops to unsubscribe is typical spammer behaviour.

Then the question becomes how do you sign up for the list in the first place? If you are required to go to a web site to sign up, then, I don't find it unreasonable to unsubscribe in the same manner. If subscribing to the list is as easy as sending an e-mail to the mailing list (oh how I miss the good old days of majordomo and listservs), then, yes, requiring you to go a website is rather unreasonable.

I've found that most mailing lists these days have sign-ups using some type of web page.

Re:double standard

[k8to]

Maybe they had web access at one time but not another? Maybe it wasn't an opt-in system in the first place? Maybe you can subscribe to the list.. via.. email?

I've definitely subscribed to mailing lists via email that then demanded web access to unsubscribe. Mailing lists should always provide the unsubscribe address in the header, and it should never require web access. It's not hard to provide this functionality, given that basically all mailling list software does it with no special configuration settings. There's no excuse for not providing it. Failing to do so is irresponsible.

Re:double standard

[Threni]

>But you haven't justified your reaction, only explained your 'laziness' in greater detail.

No, I've showed that I took reasonable efforts to unsubscribe, but that they were thwarted by a tedious, perhaps deliberately confusing unsubscribe process.

>If you want to unsubscribe from a legitimate list, there is a procedure. It should be clear but simply because it isn't doesn't mean you get to
>punish the list admin for it. If this is a huge issue for you then you should look into how you unsubscribe BEFORE you subscribe (I know, I
>know..."as the end user you just want the e-mails to start--you don't want to spend five minutes reading the rules...")

I'm never going to look into how to unsubscribe from a list before subscribing to it. It's not the job of the subscriber to do so. There aren't generally any rules to a mailing list. You hear about one, decide it sounds interesting, and sign up with your email address. Each email you receive should provide clear instructions to a simple process to unsubscribe. The best method would be a link which takes you to an `are you sure` page where you click `yes` and that's that. There is no technical reason why this can't be provided in every mailing list. It practically is already - over the last 12+ years I've been on the Internet I've subscribed and unsubscribed from tens of lists, and I hardly have any problems. The fact that some web site designers are incapable of learning best practices from other successful mailing lists is their problem, not mine.

Your tone is slightly moralistic - like that of people who complain about surfers employing ad-blocking software (which I do). Do you have a sensible objection to a single, simple unsubcribe link being provided which unsubscribes you immediately?

Re:double standard

[jotok]

If you have standards for what is "realistic" or "reasonable" then you need to make sure the list complies with those standards before you sign up. If you don't like the rules then you are not obligated to join the list--nor do you have any "right" to accessing the content via the list (you are of course free to get the content any other way you can). You may as well complain about the content if you fail to look into what the list is about before signing up. It's still on you and will always be on you.

I don't have to provide you with any simple unsubscribe links. The fact remains that you know what a list requires before you sign up, and you accept it by signing up. If you do not accept the rules...don't sign up. You are merely lazy if you do not want to follow the correct procedure and then blame the admin, and not only lazy, but intellectually lazy if you think that "But it's boring and hard to unsubscribe" constitutes a valid argument.

And why bring any other context into this? I don't see what discussing ads has to do with this.

List-Unsubscribe?

[Rob Kaper]

Assuming the mailing list includes a List-Unsubscribe header, it would be nice for anti-spam software to use this header and avoid false positives.

Of course that could be used as a spammer to verify e-mail addresses, then again a better filter is more useful on the long run than assuming no malicious party will ever put your e-mail in a database.

Re:List-Unsubscribe?

[Opportunist]

Umm... no.

I get a lot "to unsubscribe, mail to blah@blub..." spam. The reason is simple, when you do unsubscribe from the spam list, they know it's a valid and still active mail address.

You have no idea how much that increases your value as a spam target!

So when spamfilters automatically write to some unsub address instead of flagging something as spam, be prepared to be flooded with spam.

Re:List-Unsubscribe?

[FlyingBishop]

Isn't Yahoo in an ideal position to make this sort of probing useless? Just redirect all non-existent traffic with an unsubscribe header to a daemon that requests to be unsubscribed... then if you keep getting mail, you either ignore it or you use it, since you have the largest pool of honeypot email addresses on the planet.

Likewise they could in theory hit unsubscribe on behalf of their customers and then grab the resultant traffic. Of course, this is more open to attack, as the attacker can just switch email addresses. But if you're also unsubscribing all non-existent traffic, I'd say this will actually begin to get a lot more expensive for the would-be spammer than Yahoo, and the spammer would just stop trying to brute-force Yahoo.

Re:List-Unsubscribe?

[Rob Kaper]

You have no idea how much that increases your value as a spam target!

Most spammers really don't bother to check this. It's one of the reasons I stopped using catch-all aliases: I still got spam on addresses on my domain which had been inactive for a decade (for a domain I've had since 1996) and even more on random first and last name combinations for addresses which have never, ever existed.

I must admit I never click on unsubscribe links for the exact reason you give, but I would definitely let a spam filter do so for me. What training would be more accurate for spam filters than learning whether the sender honours opt-out?

It gives trust to senders who play nice, it's a honeypot for those who don't.

The only problem I see with it is what happens when you resubscribe.

It would be nice if e-mail clients would support a List-Subscribe header. In an incoming e-mail it would give a one button option to send a small reply with a List-Subscribe header itself, so the MTA and spam software could track valid subscriptions as well. Like most solutions this would take time to gain adoption, but it might just be trivial enough to work.

Re:List-Unsubscribe?

[Opportunist]

As you mention, mail addresses never leave a spam list. No matter how old, no matter how outdated, no matter how dead. Spammers get paid by the number of mails sent, not received.

For the same reason, you see the random name combinations. Yes, one out of a few thousands hits, but one for the cost of zero is still good...

Confirmed mail addresses are gold, though. Try it yourself. Create a mail address and monitor the spam you get for about a month. Then pick a few of those "unsubscribe here" spam mails and actually do unsubscribe. Then compare.

Re:List-Unsubscribe?

[RealGrouchy]

I would love a Gmail button that sends a "Delivery Status Notification (failure)" message to the sender of certain messages. Particularly messages from people who know me well and who should be smart enough to know not to send work e-mails to my home address, etc.

- RG>

But...

[Kingrames]

Is this true?

Re:But...

[cp.tar]

It is.

It's just that Yahoo! users won't know it.

Re:Bulk mail is still spam, even if it's "wanted"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Cause RSS is perfectly suited to follow threaded conversations. Sigh.

Re:Bulk mail is still spam, even if it's "wanted"

[Anonymous Coward]

Fine, but I don't want my email provider deciding something is spam because other users have marked it as spam. Unless I mark it as spam, it is not spam to me.

Re:Bulk mail is still spam, even if it's "wanted"

[daeg]

For things like True, it's perfect. It's what RSS was designed to do. True is not a mailing list like users@httpd is -- it's a bulk mailing, plain and simple.

I wonder if the author even tried to contact Yahoo. Some of my messages were being flagged as spam, I contacted Yahoo, and got a very easy tip on making sure my headers are all correct on outbound mail. I'm no longer flagged as spam via Yahoo. That was a year or so ago, though.

Re:Bulk mail is still spam, even if it's "wanted"

[VGPowerlord]

p.s. You can cry me a river about your lost ad revenue. I don't care. Get a new business model.

I would assume their ads are text these days, since all (well, most) modern email clients block images by default. Switching to RSS won't make text ads go away.

Musical emails

[Joebert]

It's Yahoo.

If it's still like it used to be a few years ago at Yahoo when I first got online, a huge chunk of those email addresses aren't even owned by the original creators anymore. People create the addresses, sometimes they forget about them or the address was "disposable" anyways, hackers steal them, then mark stuff the original creator was actually reading as spam.

Seems to me ...

[Anonymous Coward]

When we start blocking legitimate email, the spammers win.

Re:Seems to me ...

[arth1]

When we start blocking legitimate email, the spammers win.

How the hell can this be considered insightful? When we start blocking legitimate e-mail, people will no longer read their e-mail, and the spammer loses.
The spammer doesn't win anything by you not getting a legitimate e-mail. She wins only if you read and act upon her e-mail.

Re:Seems to me ...

[Free the Cowards]

People confuse effects with motivation.

For example, terrorists couldn't possibly care less about our freedoms. Their goal is not to destroy the 4th amendment or whatever else. That's just a side effect. Their goal (speaking of the standard Islamic terrorist here) is to get Western troops out of the Arab countries.

In this case, spammers just want to make money. But as a side effect to this, they end up destroying the utility of e-mail. So people start thinking that destroying the utility of e-mail is actually their goal, when it couldn't be further from the truth.

Re:Seems to me ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Their goal (speaking of the standard Islamic terrorist here) is to get Western troops out of the Arab countries.

OUT of Arab countries? I'd say the opposite. They want western troops INTO Arab countries where they are easy to attack. And as a bonus you'll get western soldiers killing civilians which will help the terrorists recruit.

Re:Seems to me ...

[Free the Cowards]

A perfect illustration of my point!

Re:Seems to me ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet somehow saying "When we start blocking legitimate email, we all lose" is much more depressing (though definitely true).

Re:Bulk mail is still spam, even if it's "wanted"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because readers constantly polling for updates makes *much* more sense than the publisher just sending them out when they're made.

Understandable, but for long

[rastoboy29]

I think Yahoo can be forgiven thus far, as anyone who works in the hosting industry knows the nature of customer service in it.  That is, there are an awful lot of yahoos out there, as it were, that want you to make exceptions for their <insert_nonsense_here> all day, every day of the week, 365 days a year.  It is truly astonishing the number of clueless people there are in the hosting realted businesses.  And in the end, a sane person simply has to tune them out, as Yahoo has done, here.

So anyway, I suspect a Slashdot front page story will be sufficient to get the mailing list whitelisted.

Re:Understandable, but for long

[Anonymous Coward]

Being in the hosting business, I can tell you there's NO excuse for Yahoo or AOL for that matter. They've put ultimate decisions about what is and isn't spam into the hands of those least capable of knowing the difference, and just compound the error, it's often easier to report mail as spam than delete it, leading to the painfully ignorant masses marking non-spam mail as spam instead of deleting it.

Re:Understandable, but for long

[Anonymous Coward]

How is the parent a troll? it's a valid opinion

Re:Understandable, but for long

[epe]

AOL does the same as yahoo... when their customers, instead of unsubscribing, they simply flag the mail as spam.

Re:Understandable, but for long

[Anonymous Coward]

Because he posted using the "code" font, and it 'twarnt code. Therefore, troll.

duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the solution to this pretty frickin easy.
Purge all yahoo addresses from the mailing list.
Block yahoo addresses from signing up.
Job done. Anyone who still really wants to be on the mailing list can use gmail or something else.
If yahoo wants to be stupid, why even think twice about it?

Re:duh

[jaymz666]

How do you notify the existing Yahoo members they need to resubscribe at another email provider?

Re:duh

[Anonymous Coward]

You use another sender to notify them that their messages will be sent to the spam folder because of Yahoo!'s filters. The filter is pretty good, I might say, it's the users that are to be blamed! If 10k clicks mark an email sender as spam, how can you not believe them?

Re:Bulk mail is still spam, even if it's "wanted"

[Splab]

No, they don't block images, they block hosted images. If you attach an image the proper way it should still be shown.

Mechanism for selection

[HalAtWork]

Maybe the problem is the mechanism for selecting mailing lists. Have all of these on a separate page with all un-checked by default, or have one of those "I understand what I am doing" mandatory check boxes. A lot of the time, sign-up pages are deceptive because they are also used to promote "partners."

120,000 subscribers total

[lena_10326]

Cassingham reports that there are over 120,000 subscribers to the mailing list for True from over 200 countries

Or so wikipedia claims. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_is_True

Do you have any idea how utterly small that is? I'm surprised they can pay their bills with a list that small--even with a fraction of those being paid subscribers.

Re:120,000 subscribers total

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any idea how utterly unconnected list size is to the amount of revenue you can make?

I know folks that have a list as small as 500-1000 people that earn a six-figure income.

Plenty of variables involved, including relationship to list, level of interest, average cost of products, length of customer lifeplan, etc.

Don't judge a list by it's size.

Re:120,000 subscribers total

[sleeponthemic]

If their revenue is generated via click throughs I'd say they are doing pretty well for themselves.

Re:120,000 subscribers total

[erikharrison]

I make mailing list software for a living. I've seen our customer's lists.

120,000 is a nice, respectable number for someone who actually has everyone opt-in. Especially when we're talking one guy.

Re:120,000 subscribers total

[lena_10326]

Yea... only if it's 1 guy.

120,000 subscribers probably means 5% paid, 95% unpaid: so a 1 year signup is $24, then 6000 * $24 = $144,000 per year, plus ad revenue, let's use a conservative 2.5% email click-thru and another 2.5% ad CPA (and averaging a 50 cent CPC), 1 email per user per week: 115,000*0.01 = 28,750 clicks * 7,187 * 0.50 ~= $3500 per month (approx), about $186k gross per year. There's probably additional banner click revenue, but his site is sure to be low-volume, negligible profit there.

So.. he's probably pulling about $175-200k a year (give or take, but I'd be surprised if it was more than $250k), but consider you need to subtract ISP costs of about $1k a month, lawyer & accountant fees, advertising costs, which usually runs very high, maybe 30% (conservative since I've seen ad costs up to 50-75%), he's probably clearing $100k to $150k per year. Not much left over to hire a secretary. Very small time operation.

Re:120,000 subscribers total

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, a year's paid subscription costs $24.... let's assume that a year's worth of weekly advertising that actually gets read is worth 0.20 cents a person. (I've got no clue how well he hypes the "likely to be read" part, so this may be off.)

If he has 5,000 paid subscribers and 120,000 free ones: 120,000 + ~25,000 = $145,000

That's easily enough to pay webhosting and bulk emailing fees, then live. Remember, he has no paid staff (so far as I can gather?), so all remaining money goes straight into his pocket. I believe he's published a few books as well on The True Stella Awards, which was probably some useful supplemental income.

Of course, if he only has 2K paid subscribers or the like, then he's in deep trouble.

Re:120,000 subscribers total

[crossmr]

I think if we're going to randomly speculate it is much more fun to put my pink to my mouth and say he is making a "million dollars!"

Re:120,000 subscribers total

[lena_10326]

Quality of data matters, yes, but the size of list matters enormously as well. Try to earn that 6 figure salary on a list size of 10 quality emails. Not very easy. Try to earn that salary on a list size of 50 million low quality emails, easy.

There is often an inverse relationship between size and quality which is due to the method of data collection. So, one could argue that 6 figures can be earned on a 10 quality emails because the quality would be inversely proportional (ie approaching infinity) to the size. The problem is quality maxes out at a certain point because quality tends to stratify into a small number of levels. This is related to the collection method used:

• scraping web pages and bulletin boards: very low quality & low cost
• coregistration: low quality & low cost
• 1 click signup: medium quality & medium cost
• 2 click signup: high quality & high cost
• paid signup: very high quality & very high cost

Since the potential for quality maxes out, focus will be heavily focused on increasing list size because its potential is seemingly infinite or bounded only by the world's population size.

Re:120,000 subscribers total

[Scott Kevill]

I think if we're going to randomly speculate it is much more fun to put my pink to my mouth and say he is making a "million dollars!"

Wow, did you remove a couple of ribs?

Re:120,000 subscribers total

[drDugan]

You forgot the "Get out of HELL free" cards!

http://www.goohf.com/origin.html

Re:120,000 subscribers total

[Main Gauche]

"I think if we're going to randomly speculate it is much more fun to put my pink to my mouth and say he is making a 'million dollars!'"

It certainly sounds like more fun!

Re:120,000 subscribers total

[Anonymous Coward]

The number of people on the list has been declining for years, but it's doubled in the last six months. *ducks*

Re:120,000 subscribers total

[Anonymous Coward]

Great analysis, but the reality is quite a bit different. Most targeted list owners plan to shoot for $1/person/month in revenue by using HIGHLY targeted offers for that demographic.

I run a fairly small list (opt-in, clear unsubscribe, use my real name!) with about 2000 people on it and it earns $0.70/person/mo through subscriptions to a member site I also run, one-off sales of downloadable products, etc.

If I had a list of 120,000 skeptics, I would likely offer ebook sales, videos, magazine subscriptions, etc and would very likely be able to maintain an income of 0.25-$0.50/person/mo range with my knowledge of the niche. Many may do better!

Real Internet marketing professionals don't use "advertisements" to earn revenue, they build products and services or connect directly with those that do to provide exactly what that demographic wants and needs. They treat their list members like gold, answer questions, thank them for feedback, make changes, do surveys, and treat them all like human beings.

The process is broken.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mailing lists are dead. They are a bad solution to the group communication problem. They aren't working well because they were a bad solution.

Use forums and/or RSS feeds.

That solution is more closely aligned with the problem that they are trying to solve.

They need an accreditation system

[lseltzer]

If they really are demonstrably not spam and follow responsible practices and they are really profitable then they should contract with Goodmail or some other accreditation system and take mistaken users out of the picture.

Re:They need an accreditation system

[Tony Hoyle]

Those systems have more spammers than nonspammers signed up to them. It simply doesn't work... in fact some of them (the one that use haikus for example) they became a near 100% perfect spam detector.

Spam traps in the 2nd degree.

[khasim]

If you own your own domain (or manage one) you can create a fake address and use it ONLY for that specific site. Then unsubscribe it. Then label anything that gets delivered to it as spam.

The reason this is "2nd degree" is that you actively subscribe it.

The "1st degree" spam traps would be ones that you never subscribed to anything.

we need a receipt after confirmation

[Russ Nelson]

When somebody subscribes to one of my mailing lists, and confirms, we need a token from the mailbox provider which, when included on an incoming email means that the email is NEVER spam. Spam reports get converted into unsubscribe requests.

But there's no standard for this.

Re:we need a receipt after confirmation

[Anonymous Coward]

Russ,

I don't suppose you could provide some more details about how you do this? I'm looking at this exact same problem at work right now and would sincerely appreciate any pointers you may have.

Yours sincerely
Sir Harrok

Re:we need a receipt after confirmation

[martin-boundary]

That's not going to be popular. You're asking for direct feedback from the spam filter, which is valuable information. There's a reason why spam filters silently drop messages, because that way it's harder for spammers to optimize their messages to get through.

Re:we need a receipt after confirmation

[xehonk]

He's talking about users requesting the mails to be marked as spam. He said himself that the filter will always mark them as ham.

Re:we need a receipt after confirmation

[TubeSteak]

When somebody subscribes to one of my mailing lists, and confirms, we need a token from the mailbox provider which, when included on an incoming email means that the email is NEVER spam. Spam reports get converted into unsubscribe requests.

And how long will it take for those mailing lists + tokens to get hacked and used as verified mailing lists by spammers?

I can't imagine that an e-mail provider will tag an incoming address as "NEVER spam" unless it is their own mailings or that of a 'partner'.

Re:we need a receipt after confirmation

[martin-boundary]

Eh? He's talking about users marking his messages as spam, so that the spam filter can divulge this information to him. Same difference.

The whole point of this scheme is that users are too lazy to unsubscribe in the first place, and prefer marking a mailing list as spam instead. That damages his reputation as a mailing list operator, and he wants to minimize the damage by having the spam filter give him direct feedback. I'm saying sapm filters giving feedback is not going to be popular.

Re:we need a receipt after confirmation

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you keep spammers from spoofing this token?

Re:we need a receipt after confirmation

[Anonymous Coward]

what's the market dollar value of these tokens?

Re:we need a receipt after confirmation

[Caetel]

Why would the mail provider trust you? How exactly would they decide who is and who isn't a legitimate mailing list provider?

At the end of the day, they are there to provide a service to their own customers, not you. If the person receiving your e-mail finds it hard enough to unsubscribe that they decide to mark you e-mail as spam, and enough people mark it as spam to trigger a customer base wide filter, what incentive to they have to work with you rather than their own customer?

Re:we need a receipt after confirmation

[Anonymous Coward]

When somebody subscribes to one of my mailing lists, and confirms, we need a token from the mailbox provider which, when included on an incoming email means that the email is NEVER spam. Spam reports get converted into unsubscribe requests.

But there's no standard for this.

At least this seems a workable solution, for we will never educate people who are dumb enough to think mark as spam is the same as delete.

Oh, grow up.

[fm6]

Spam filtering is a problem for all mailing lists. Simple solution: use newsfeeds instead.

Re:Oh, grow up.

[SanityInAnarchy]

And when the ISPs stop delivering the newsfeeds?

Re:Oh, grow up.

[fm6]

Newsfeeds are not "delivered", at least not in the sense that email is. Your newsreader retrieves them directly from the provider's HTTP server.

Re:Oh, grow up.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Oh, sorry, for a moment, I'd confused this with newsgroups. When you mentioned HTTP, it helped -- I still think of those as "RSS feeds".

Re:Oh, grow up.

[fm6]

Right, I should have said that. The nitpicker in me balks at calling them RSS feeds, because so many of them use ATOM.

I gave up on newsgroups a long time ago.

Re:Oh, grow up.

[gsslay]

Good point. I'm sure I read a discussion on slashdot years ago that predicted exactly this scenario. Lazy or stupid subscribers will choose to stop getting emails simply by clicking the "This is spam" button. Means they don't have to read the unsubscribe instructions on the email and involves minimal effort on their part.

But it's time for people to move on. Email is not the way to mass distribute information. Apart from spam ruining it for everyone, it's really inefficient. Use newsfeeds.

Re:Oh, grow up.

[fm6]

I think it's a little unfair to call them "lazy or stupid". Keeping up with one's email every day can be very time consuming and repetitive. If you haven't checked your email in a couple days, you might find yourself with a couple hundred messages to sort through. If a lot of it is spam, anybody is quite likely to flag something they don't recognize immediately — like a newsletter they forgot they subscribed to.

Also, I'm less than convinced that flagging had that much to do with the newsletter getting banned. No doubt that's what Yahoo's call center people told Randy when he hassled them, but you know how well-informed they are. More likely some statistical filter has decided he's spam based on the volume of the email he sends out, keyword matching, and the IP block he sends it from.

Re:Oh, grow up.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never seen the point to RSS. It's easier to just load a list of bookmarks using the 'Open all in tabs' option. My interest in mailing lists was for modem use; it let me load my mail and then go offline and read it. A feed reader that automatically loads the articles would be useful for that. Of course with broadband thats less significant but RSS still looks like a solution in search of a problem.

I gave up on my Yahoo email account

[QuietLagoon]

I've had it for nearly 10 years. However, Yahoo's delivery of email into my account is sketchy at best.

.

Why can gmail (my new free email provider) do such a better job than Yahoo did?

Re:I gave up on my Yahoo email account

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently transitioned to Gmail after 10 years with Yahoo as well. I had way too many false positives in the Spam folder.

Yahoo Mail customer service was a nightmare when I contacted them about the issue - they deleted my alternate email address (the one on my CV!) and said it could not be restored for 6 months. They told me to contact everyone I know and give them a new email address. Umm, okay...and the domain will be @gmail.com!

Re:I gave up on my Yahoo email account

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Yahoo! has never created one decent offering in their entire existence?*

*Flickr doesn't count. It was bought by Yahoo!, not created by them.

Oh NOES!!

[dkarma]

Too bad the people who want to read the newsletter will have set up a forwarding email...boo hoo.

No surprise to me

[no-body]

the amount of SPAM I get on my single Yahoo email account is tremendous.

To distinguish legimate emails is difficult, so the "select all -> SPAM" is the option for me to deal with this.

This email account is actually an annoyance - I tried closing it - impossible with more than reasonable effort. So - it's the quick SPAM option since I am no longer using this account.

In comparison - my several Gmail accounts do not attract very much SPAM and if so they get filtered.

My conclusion is that Yahoo's SPAM filters are not very much up to snuff.

Re:No surprise to me

[dAzED1]

it's annoying...you tried closing it... Did you try simply not checking it anymore? Or does that not win you enough martyr points for the pain and suffering you go through from your free email? I've had yahoo mail for many years, as well as even hotmail (since long before it was with MS). I can go a week with either account, log in, and will have a dozen spam email in my inbox. Sure, there's lots in the spam box, but...so what. And I even use these accounts to sign up for things; hell, that's half the point of the accounts, is to be used for trivial crap like signing up for whatever registration of blah crap. Hardly an annoyance - hell, hardly something worth complaining about at all. Either you don't flag the right things to flag, you respond with "unsubscribe" to the wrong things, or you've subscribed yourself to way too many seedy sites.

Re:No surprise to me

[Ash-Fox]

How to delete your Yahoo! account.

Re:No surprise to me

[no-body]

Mail only: not possible AFAIKS, so Yahoo = lotsa SPAM in your email - if you neglect to access it for a longer period (3/6 month) one had to go through a elaborate procedure to get it reestablished or whatever hassle there is. So, it's select all -> SPAM periodically.

Btw. I tried filling up the account with data (large image attachments) to exhaust the allowed limit and then emails would bounce - forget it with the "unlimited" feature - didn't even try again....

Boot on other foot

[Arimus]

How about we all configure our mail server to reject any mail from yahoo - that should cut down a fair bit of crap from my inbox... :)

Re:Boot on other foot

[HeronBlademaster]

Up until last week I would have disagreed with you - but then my wife switched to gmail :D

idiots who click on "this is spam"

[Anonymous Coward]

most of them think it's a way of unsubscribing from a list.

Causes blacklisting for domains and hosting companies. I had a guy who forwarded his email address to an external address, then clicked on "This is spam" for every message. My IP was in the header so I got blacklisted. I had to scare the shit out of him to get him to stop "now that I've warned you, if you continue, I'll sue and take your house." Needless to say the customer did not renew, saved me the trouble of TOSsing him.

Re:idiots who click on "this is spam"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, which is why users have no business being allowed to decide what is and isn't spam. They have no idea which is which and don't care.

Re:idiots who click on "this is spam"

[Anonymous Coward]

I click "this is spam" because when you attempt to unsubscribe, it rarely works and just proves that you're a real live mailbox. Clicking "this is spam" removes them for sure :o) I'll gladly do it from now on, even if it banishes legit mailings. It's not my problem!

Re:idiots who click on "this is spam"

[Just Some Guy]

I'll gladly do it from now on, even if it banishes legit mailings. It's not my problem!

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen: the asshole who ruins good things for everyone.

Re:idiots who click on "this is spam"

[Nimey]

Yep. My university kept getting flagged as spammers by Hotmail et al because dumbass students (but I repeat myself) didn't want to get certain emails from us and instead of deleting them or unsubscribing, they flagged the mail as spam. Result: we're known as spammers not just to Hotmail but to users of big antispam lists, and lots of legit emails can't get out.

That took a couple days to clear up.

Re:idiots who click on "this is spam"

[ElderKorean]

most of them think it's a way of unsubscribing from a list.

I guess that Gmail has been suffering under the same problem. Just yesterday morning I found the most recent Google Groups newsletter in my spam folder - I clicked on the Not Spam button.

Obviously even google don't automatically pass their email addresses as legit.

I haven't read it yet, but it definetly isn't spam.

Re:idiots who click on "this is spam"

[Scott Kevill]

Yep, had the same problem. A forwarding alias to a Yahoo account. He was marking actual spam as spam, but Yahoo blocked the forwarding server instead of the real source. Fortunately, it was a family member, so I could smack him for it, but I would have rather been able to smack Yahoo.

Re:idiots who click on "this is spam"

[zerocool^]

The big email providers all do this; gmail, yahoo, and commodity email providers like RIM. Forwarding spam to them will get your server's ip reputation trashed.

Where I work, we finally had to make the choice that anytime a user has a preference set to "forward mail to an external account", we explicitly over-ride their spam settings, and don't forward spam, period. There has to be a line drawn in the sand somewhere. This means that people that want their spam marked as [SPAM] (instead of sent to their spam folder or deleted immediately) will not get these emails on their Blackberry (they still get them in their local mail, marked however their preferences say), but them's the breaks, in the end you can't compromise your entire operation's integrity because someone wants to not only delete the copy of the p3n1s mail they saved in their webmail, but also delete it on their Blackberry slash gmail.

X

Re:idiots who click on "this is spam"

[Shin-LaC]

Why don't you give students their own mailboxes on your server, instead of sending your mail to external addresses?

Re:idiots who click on "this is spam"

[Nimey]

We are making changes. Starting in August, if the sysadmins in their wisdom haven't changed things again, the students will be forced to use a uni-branded version of Gmail for all official communications. The spam situation was probably the biggest driver for this.

Re:idiots who click on "this is spam"

[twosmokes]

I click "this is spam" because when you attempt to unsubscribe, it rarely works and just proves that you're a real live mailbox.

But you intentionally signed up for the list in the first place. Of course they know it's a working address. Are you really this retarded?

Re:idiots who click on "this is spam"

[Anonymous Coward]

Over at our office, any mail you don't want is called "spam". Doesn't matter why you get it. Doesn't matter if you HAVE to have it ( like company announcements). Its spam.

People mark mail server non-delivery reports as spam.

The point is: Slashdotters might know what spam is, but 99% of the population reckons spam is just "mail we don't want to read"

Gmail users may also be at risk

[Anonymous Coward]

As it happens, I read about this Yahoo spam thing in a This Is True which I accidentally found from GMail's spam folder. And I have definitely not marked it as spam myself.

So, if there are TiT (heh) subscribers among the Slashdot crowd using Gmail, you might want to check your spam folder...

Easy workaround.

[dashesy]

Anybody who really wants the mailing list can put the email coming from it in the contact list. The mailing list should have an easy unsubscribe method, so that user do not mark the email as spam.

Re:Easy workaround.

[rob1980]

Anybody who really wants the mailing list can put the email coming from it in the contact list.

When Yahoo blocks somebody that gets reported as spam, they don't just update their spam filters - they forcibly block incoming SMTP traffic from the offending mail server. Further messages never make it past Yahoo's MX, let alone getting to individual spam quarantines.

I have fought my share of battles with their abuse department for the same reason as this mailing list, and it's a royal pain in the ass.

Re:Easy workaround.

[RomulusNR]

Simply put, users are not always that smart.

(Did you miss the "Yahoo!" part or something?)

Yeah, it sucks that Yahoo! yahoos are using the Spam button as an unsubscribe method, perhaps not aware the damage it does to the list en masse for other Yahoo! users, and in this case, for the viability of the list itself.

That shouldn't result in this sort of outcome though. The point of the story here is not just that Yahoo has stopped delivering, but that This Is True is going to suffer as it loses ad impressions as a secondary result.

No sane person could consider TiT spam. It has one real ad, in the middle of the email; it comes at most once a week; and it is only opt-in.

Ads aren't TiT's only revenue source, though -- readers can get an expanded, more frequent, and ad-free version of the list by getting a paid subscription.

Re:Easy workaround.

[Anonymous Coward]

Aside from the fact that this doesn't work on Yahoo, it also does absolutely nothing on the vast majority of mail systems in the world.

It's just another extreme case of stupidity that the phrase "to ensure delivery, put dumbass.com in your address book" appears at the bottom of most mail.

Sue 'em for Libel

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't fart around and don't wait. Accusations of being a SPAMmer with real negative economic consequences can easily be construed as libel, as SPAM has a legal definition. False accusation, leading to economic loss=decent probability of a win in a libel case. Yahoo allegedly has at least one or two professional people in their organization, and they fail to differentiate between a button for SPAM and something else, like an additional "just stop delivering this" button as an alternative. Tough shit for them and the cluless lusers who marked it as SPAM when it clearly wasn't. The list owner could sue both yahoo and individual numbnuts who were too lazy to follow the opt out link.

And I hope it carries over to those horribly maintained RBL lists as well, just try to plead your case to them when falsely accused of spamming.

Time to start nailing computer idiots and computer company professional idiots where it hurts. If you honestly and really just cannot use a computer, or are just too lazy to follow a few simple steps, just get the F off the net. Just get off. Some people just never can learn to drive, some people are just never going to be able to use the net. Just reality. This coddling of idiots has gone on too long, with widespread malware from the beast's bogus products making it easy to get pwned all the way to stuff like this where a big fat professional computer/internet company can't be arsed to do five minutes work before labeling something as SPAM and then costing some little guy his loot.

Re:Sue 'em for Libel

[strelitsa]

Suing your customers has really worked well for RIAA, hasn't it.

Re:Sue 'em for Libel

[drDugan]

The list owner could sue

true... with enough money and desire to be in court- almost anyone can "sue" for whatever they want...

but to win, one must have a case. How is Yahoo marking messages as spam a case of Libel? I'm not a lawyer, but, sadly, I've been sued my fair share... For libel, as I understand it, the statements or actions need to be public (written or broadcast) and unjustly unfavorable (eg untrue), neither of which are the case here.

Weirdly, getting front page slashdotted may be a much better outcome for Randy than Yahoo blocking the emails.

Disclaimer: I've been on the This is True public list on and off with different emails since 1998. I love the list and the stories have subscribed several times. Well worth the effort and $24...

Re:Sue 'em for Libel

[meringuoid]

Accusations of being a SPAMmer with real negative economic consequences can easily be construed as libel, as SPAM has a legal definition.

Yes, it does: SPAM is a tinned luncheon meat made by Hormel, who are very protective of their trademark on SPAM. Spam, on the other hand, can also refer to unsolicited bulk email.

Subscription confirmations need to be standardised

[Bogtha]

You know that email you get to confirm subscriptions? It should be in a standard format, containing a public key and an unsubscribe mechanism. That way, mailers would know for a fact that somebody opted-in and could provide an unsubscribe button instead of a spam button.

Perhaps this already exists? I know there are already some standard mailing list mail headers, but I don't think they cover this, do they?

Re:Bulk mail is still spam, even if it's "wanted"

[Tony Hoyle]

Nope good email clients block *all* images (and all attachments of all kinds including javascript). I don't want my email covered in pink ponies thank you very much.

Yahoo is dead, get out while you can

[Anonymous Coward]

I gave up on Yahoo several months ago after an unknown person hijacked my account and changed the password. I don't log in from other computers, I only log in from the Mac in my bedroom, so it's not like I was creating a risk. I was paying Yahoo for a personalized "business" email address, yet it took three hours of phone calls, several emails and over three days to get them to turn my account back over to me. At one point, they told me they could not verify my identity with my name, phone number, mailing address and the credit card number they were billing. They said they couldn't unlock the account without me telling them what my security question was (which I chose 10 years ago), and the answer to that question. I told them, "that's not how security questions work. You ask me the security question and unlock my account when I provide the correct answer." When I finally did get back into my account, I discovered the hijacker had been contacting women through Yahoo personals posing as me, and in some cases telling them to "reply to my other Yahoo address." There were a few different addresses he was pointing people to. I notified Yahoo about this and asked them to investigate the fraud, and they told me it wasn't a priority for them. I migrated everything important to Google, and called Yahoo to cancel my account and transfer my personalized domain, but after hours of waiting on the phone, again, and again, they tell me they don't have the ability to release my domain. It's like dealing with a car salesman. As the company fails, it resorts to shadier practices to hold onto what it has, like AOL before it.

Re:Yahoo is dead, get out while you can

[slashtivus]

Huh? I had the same happen to me. I was able to re-take my Y! account just over the web by answering some of the 'secret' questions that I had created when I originally set up the account. My account is about 10 years old so it took a couple of tries to remember all the answers. After that I reset my password, done. Not to flame you, but it's hard for me to believe a CC number and all that would not have been more than sufficient. It did take a bit of digging to figure out how to do it over the web (they kinda bury it in a hidden away part of their site), but it worked really well for me. This was just 7 months ago or so for me.

Re:Yahoo is dead, get out while you can

[Anonymous Coward]

is that you, QuietLagoon? :-P

Re:Yahoo is dead, get out while you can

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, and it wasn't limited to your email account!

I also hijacked your Anonymous Coward account here on Slashdot!

Take that!

Re:Yahoo is dead, get out while you can

[bryce4president]

Did your wife buy into that story too? You really need to keep her out of your "business" account when you're using it for personals, I mean "personal" things.

I bet she would have given you the password after the divorce was finalized ;)

Net Neutrality?

[Nymz]

If Yahoo can block a request for an email from a specific domain, can my ISP (AT&T-Yahoo) decide to block search requests from a specific domain? Of course, Google would probably skip the blogging/Slashdot steps, and go straight for lawyer/courthouse steps.

Side issue, but I assumed that defining spam was training your personal filter, and not applied to the accounts of other people. Much like a spell-checker will highlight a persons name, and you select 'add it' so it won't get highlighted again. You are training a computer program to behave in a more sophisticated and intelligent manner.

Re:Net Neutrality?

[HeronBlademaster]

Both Google and Yahoo (not sure about Hotmail) use global spam filters that everyone trains, the idea being that the more training the filter gets, the more accurate it is. Seems there are flaws with that idea.

Re:Net Neutrality?

[perlchild]

It's common practice for larger email providers to treat any large movements of personal training as indicative of the nature of an email(if a bunch of people tag it as spam for themselves, it must be spam for everyone, going into dns-blacklists, etc, even if a few people tag it ham). This is a single-provider example of what people do when they report spam to spamcop, except spamcop's blacklist expands the concept to more than one provider.

Just because your personal training data is used in a personal context, it doesn't mean it cannot be used, statistically(99% of people marked this as spam, block it at the smtp level, we're wasting cpu cycles receiving this).

You should be using a filter, not the spam reporting feature for this... What people delete unread is not(yet) tracked. What's flagged has spam carries a black mark...

Re:Net Neutrality?

[1u3hr]

Both Google and Yahoo (not sure about Hotmail) use global spam filters that everyone trains, the idea being that the more training the filter gets, the more accurate it is. Seems there are flaws with that idea.

Yahoo's is fucking useless. There is no way you can write your own rules -- why can't I block all email with certain words in the subject, or from a particular domain? I do have a smidgin of intelligence, why won't they let me use it directly? No matter how many times I delete similar spam, they don't learn a damn thing. I only stick with Yahoo because I've got lots of business contacts who use that address -- I really must transition to my own domain.

Re:Net Neutrality?

[r7]

Both Google and Yahoo (not sure about Hotmail) use global spam filters that everyone trains

This is a recipe for spam. You can't trust end-users with this. You also can't trust most email administrators to take care when marking things as spam/not spam. About all you can do is manually check (some of) the messages (some) users flag for inclusion to global Bayesian / pattern recognition filtering.

ISPs and email appliances that give end-users any control over their own filtering are shooting themselves in the foot. Spam filtering is a full time job and if you want to do it right you have to spend at least a couple of hours a day on it. 999 out of 1000 untrained users/admins get it wrong, accounting for the spam "statistics" published by Gartner and others. In reality, well managed email services have virtually no false positives and at most a few spam a week, while blocking or discarding the 95-99% of email messages that are spam (at the statistical average business or ISP).

The issue at large ISPs like gmail/yahoo is ROI. As long as users are willing to put up with spam there's no point in spending much money on effective tools and methods to identify and filter it.

Re:Net Neutrality?

[Awptimus Prime]

Yahoo's is fucking useless.

Don't use them, move on, don't have a stroke because something you aren't paying for doesn't let you bog their servers with the features you want.

Re:Net Neutrality?

[HeronBlademaster]

A better idea would be to give each user a personalized filter, so they only train their own, the same way it works if you use Thunderbird's built-in filters to do your spam filtering (which is what I do). That way no individual user can screw things up for anyone else. It might take more processing power or disk space than it's worth though.

Re:Net Neutrality?

[1u3hr]

Don't use them, move on, don't have a stroke

Thanks for your useless patronising response.

Re:Net Neutrality?

[gEvil (beta)]

Yahoo's is fucking useless. There is no way you can write your own rules -- why can't I block all email with certain words in the subject, or from a particular domain? I do have a smidgin of intelligence, why won't they let me use it directly?

Mail Options > Filters. It's been there forever. It works like it should. Not sure why you can't seem to find it or use it.

Re:Net Neutrality?

[Awptimus Prime]

Thanks for your useless patronising response.

That's what I am here for!

Re:Bulk mail is still spam, even if it's "wanted"

[One Childish N00b]

Bulk mail is still spam, even if it's "wanted"

Actually, no it isn't. Unsolicited mail is spam, a mailing list you consciously signed up for isn't. Just because you're too lazy to properly unsubscribe and thus reach for the 'This Is Spam' button to make it disappear doesn't make it spam.

Such irony

[Reality Master 101]

The irony is that This is True is one of the first profitable mailing lists, predating Yahoo! Mail by almost three years.

What's ironic about it?

[rhetorical question to highlight "irony" word abuse]

Re:Such irony

[Nymz]

Imagine trying to buy a beer from a corner store, and the 16 year old clerk refuses to sell it to you without presenting your drivers license. It's ironic because you (assuming you are of legal age) are at least five years older than him, and he (the person in possession of the alcohol) is requiring proof of age from you, which he himself lacks.

[rhetorical answer to hightlight "missed irony" abuse.] :)

Re:Such irony

[Aladrin]

His yahoo/mailing list example is only ironic if you assume older means wiser, even for businesses. It doesn't, it just means that it's been there longer.

Yours is a bit thin on irony, too, as irony has to do with situations that you'd think would be backwards to what they are. Since it's the law that anyone that -looks- under 34 (or 29, or whatever it is in your area) gets carded when they buy alchohol and the 16yr old clerk doesn't own the liquor (and therefore can't drink it), it's not a very ironic situation. It's not that I don't see the irony, it's just so thin as to be pointless.

systemic problems with yahoo inbox delivery

[NynexNinja]

I stopped using Yahoo about 4-5 years ago because of problems with inbox delivery. After many tests, their mail servers would respond that the message was Sent when in fact it was never delivered. I've tested it about 20-30 times since then and have the same issues. Even if you send mail from supposedly vanity domains like Gmail.com, the mail still never gets delivered. Yahoo has had problems before with the profiles.yahoo.com site getting infiltrated by spammers about 5-7 years ago, a problem they never solved. It seems like the problems don't go away -- they only get worse. This story is just one example.

AOL has a similar problem

[John3]

I run a relatively small (2,000 subscribers) email discussion list for hardware store owners. I'm signed up as a mailing list provider with AOL's mail system, and I receive notifications when subscribers submit my list messages as spam. Apparently AOL's DELETE and REPORT AS SPAM buttons are relatively close together, though I can't verify this. I do know that I get notifications from AOL that a user has reported a message as spam, and when I contact the user they tell me it was a mistake and they didn't realize they had reported the message as spam.

My guess is that you have to reach a fairly high "critical mass" of spam reports before AOL will actually take action and block list messages. I've never had my list blocked by AOL (or Yahoo for that matter) so the occasional erroneous report doesn't seem to have much effect.

I wonder if Yahoo has a similar program for mailing list admins?

Re:AOL has a similar problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if Yahoo has a similar program for mailing list admins?

They do, but they're not accepting new sign-ups right now. They "helpfully" suggested I sign up for it when it reopens to new memberships when I contacted them to find out why three of their listed MX servers never accept emails from my server.

Apparently asking a Yahoo! Mail administrator if your IP is blacklisted on certain MX servers is grounds for them to blacklist you on all their MX servers...

Part of the problem...

[shmlco]

If the site was so bad that you only visited it once, why did you give them your friggin' email address?

They didn't just grab it out of thin air, you know. You're the one that went through their registration process and agreed to their terms of service, in which case any email they sent to you WASN'T unsolicited and WASN'T spam.

In short, you're one of the idiots who're causing all of the problems. Just click the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of the email next time.

Re:Part of the problem...

[Fred Ferrigno]

I think the users are fully aware that it isn't spam and they did request it. They mark it as spam because they want to stop getting the email and marking it as spam is the best way they know how.

This list is legitimate and I suspect it's easy enough to unsubscribe, but we've all been trained to be wary of "unsubscribe" links in email. I don't know if the request will be honored or if I'll have to jump through a lot of hoops. I've seen unsubscribe pages that say I'll be removed from their list "in 2-3 weeks", obviously just so they can send me another few emails.

The spam button has a known functionality: it keeps emails out of the inbox. If it has the side-effect of mistraining the spam filter, so be it. In fact, that's better for the user if all they care about is getting rid of emails they don't want to see, solicited or not.

Re:Part of the problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that "mark as spam" button. It shouldn't be there in the first place. Anyone using AOL and Yahoo doesn't have any idea what's spam and what isn't and doesn't care. That call should only be made by those competent to make it, and that excludes users. It's one thing to let them mark mail for review by some competent party, but to allow them to directly influence the mail stream of everyone else using the service is just gross negligence on the part of ISPs.

Re:Part of the problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is one of the dumbest things I've ever read on slashdot. Dumber than mister Dramane Yadi, who wants to give me 30% of $8 million.

Re:Part of the problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

A "one-time stand"??
Seriously, how many times have you registered with a stoopid site because of just ONE article you wanted to read AT THAT TIME? Had they provided you what you wanted in the terms you wanted you wouldn't be in their records, which might not be great for them but perhaps not as bad as being tagged as spammers by you. But they insisted on collecting your info despite the fact you weren't that interested in their stuff as to have an ongoing relationship with them ... Is there any wonder that you don't "answer their calls" anymore??

Exceptions List?

[Digicrat]

I would presume that interested subscribers (particularly paid ones) would still find a way of receiving their messages. EVERY spam filter has an exceptions list, to explicitly specify addresses that you want to receive messages from, even if the filter thinks they are spam. Yahoo's prefes might be a bit more hidden, but I'd be surprised if adding this 'blocked' mailing address to that list wouldn't let the messages through. Presuming the mailing list is linked to an actual website letting his users know to add the address to their exceptions list, it doesn't seem like this should be more than a temporary problem if his viewers are actually dedicated. Spam is a problem. Idiots incorrectly using spam filters is another one. But that's how things are, and until some spam-proof Internet 2.0 comes along, we just have to deal with spam or inaccurate filters as they stand - or change mail providers if becomes annoyng.

It's not spam

[od05]

As long as they identify who they are, include an opt-out link, and don't use deceptive marketing it's not spam. Yahoo shouldn't be blocking anything to the masses that is potentially a good email. If I hit "spam" and it's a legit email, it shouldn't effect a guy who subscribes.

Yahoo should do more to make the whitelisting process more accessible.

Some sites make it deliberately hard

[grahamsz]

If something has single click unsubscribe then i'll happily use that.

However too many sites expect that you figure out what username and password you used to sign up and then somehow manage your subscriptions via their website.

If i cant get off a list in under 30 seconds, then i'll spam filter it in google

Re:Some sites make it deliberately hard

[cualquiercosa]

phplist has that, yuo can set it up so users won't need a password.

Re:Some sites make it deliberately hard

[Dave Child]

Sounds like Easyjet. Click "unsubscribe" and they force you to log in to an account and change your mailing options. The kicker is - it doesn't work. You still get email from them with offers you don't want, and their support people apparently just don't bother to reply to any form of contact. All of which is pretty stupid, as they are forcing people to flag their offer emails as spam (which they are), which will inevitably make it more difficult for people to receive their booking information.

Re:Some sites make it deliberately hard

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. It's ridiculous that I have to "manage" my subscriptions to some list(s) I don't even care about. This is especially true when I didn't sign up for this list to begin with or if unsubscribing doesn't work (which is often enough).

Re:Some sites make it deliberately hard

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed - I'm the same - it needs to be as easy to unsubscribe as to mark as spam.

Re:Some sites make it deliberately hard

[Anonymous Coward]

In that case you should just get the hell off the internet, because you're too stupid and selfish and lazy to live and you're spoiling it for everyone else who isn't as shit as you are. Go on, get lost. Why should anyone else give a damn about what happens to you if you're going to be like that?

freedom of speech

[Anonymous Coward]

usually one of the first (non-physical) casualties of ?life? under ife0cidal corepirate nazi regimes. 'beware the military-industrial complex'. who said that? the lights are coming up all over now. conspiracy theorists are being vindicated. some might choose a tin umbrella to go with their hats. the fairytail is winding down now. let your conscience be yOUR guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. there are still some choices. if they do not suit you, consider the likely results of continuing to follow the corepirate nazi hypenosys story LIEn, whereas anything of relevance is replaced almost instantly with pr ?firm? scriptdead mindphuking propaganda or 'celebrity' trivia 'foam'. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on yOUR brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.

http://news.google.com/?ncl=1216734813&hl=en&topic=n
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/opinion/31mon1.html?em&ex=1199336400&en=c4b5414371631707&ei=5087%0A
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/world/29amnesty.html?hp
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/02/nasa.global.warming.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/05/severe.weather.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/06/02/honore.preparedness/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/opinion/01dowd.html?em&ex=1212638400&en=744b7cebc86723e5&ei=5087%0A
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/05/senate.iraq/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/washington/17contractor.html?hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/world/middleeast/03kurdistan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080708/cheney_climate.html

is it time to get real yet? A LOT of energy is being squandered in attempts to keep US in the dark. in the end (give or take a few 1000 years), the creators will prevail (world without end, etc...), as it has always been. the process of gaining yOUR release from the current hostage situation may not be what you might think it is. butt of course, most of US don't know, or care what a precarious/fatal situation we're in. for example; the insidious attempts by the felonious corepirate nazi execrable to block the suns' light, interfering with a requirement (sunlight) for us to stay healthy/alive. it's likely not good for yOUR health/memories 'else they'd be bragging about it? we're intending for the whoreabully deceptive (they'll do ANYTHING for a bit more monIE/power) felons to give up/fail even further, in attempting to control the 'weather', as well as a # of other things/events.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=weather+manipulation&btnG=Search
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=video+cloud+spraying

dictator style micro management has never worked (for very long). it's an illness. tie that with life0cidal aggression & softwar gangster style bullying, & what do we have? a greed/fear/ego based recipe for disaster. meanwhile, you can help to stop the bleeding (loss of life & limb);

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/28/vermont.banning.bush.ap/index.html

the bleeding must be stopped before any healing can begin. jailing a couple of corepirate nazi hired goons would send a clear message to the rest of the world from US. any truthful look at the 'scorecard' would reveal that we are a society in decline/deep doo-doo, despite all of the scriptdead pr ?firm? generated drum beating & flag waving propaganda that we are constantly bombarded with. is it time to get real yet? please consider carefully ALL of yOUR other 'options'. the creators will prevail. as it has always been.

corepirate nazi execrable costs outweigh benefits
(Score:-)mynuts won, the king is a fink)
by ourselves on everyday 24/7

as there are no benefits, just more&more death/debt & disruption. fortunately there's an 'army' of light bringers, coming yOUR way. the little ones/innocents must/will be protected. after the big flash, ALL of yOUR imaginary 'bor

Re:freedom of speech

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to think you're a computer
    spewing out Markov chains,
But a small bit of searching
    made the truth much more plain.

A middle-aged man
    with a Linux obsession
Puts the world to rights,
    tries to teach us a lesson.

With odd phrases and style
    you type out your rants,
Howling at the establishment
    with moronic chants.

Why not just relax,
    (drinking Kombucha tea)
Your words fall on deaf ears,
    so why bother? You see,

Everything you post here
    gets modded down.
You're minus one offtopic,
    Harry D Brown.

Re:freedom of speech

[Anonymous Coward]

i get my loose asshole pounded out so much by a lot of hung studs that i caught anal warts from it. i just bought some wart off and i really hope it works on my raw itchy ass warts.

Something I've noticed...

[NerveGas]

From both Yahoo and AOL users: If they don't want something, they just mark it spam, even if they signed up for it.

In fact, we have customers that pay us money every month to send them leads on their inventory, and ever month, we have a few of them (AOL users) mark legitimate inquiries as spam. And they not only asked us to send them to them, they're PAYING US to send them to them!!!

Re:Something I've noticed...

[Anonymous Coward]

That most people are nearly too dumb to be allowed near a computer in the first place comes as no surprise to anyone here. But the real blame indeed lies with Yahoo and AOL outsourcing their anti-spam operation to their users, who simply have no competence whatsoever to know the difference between spam and ham and no interest in pesky facts like having subscribed themselves to mailing lists.

Re:"slashing the ad revenue"

[ricegf]

Huh? The Yahoo yahoo submitted his address requesting the newsletter, replied to a confirmation email with "Yes, I want your newsletter", then complained about the newsletter he twice requested. Yet you think it's spam because he carries advertising?

Well, you are certainly overdue to enroll in Spam 101. Don't wait. Trust me, ignorance is never bliss.

Re:Subscription confirmations need to be standardi

[bhtooefr]

List-Unsubscribe: is defined in RFC 2369...

And, irony of ironies, Yahoo! Groups actually uses it in their messages.

Whine, complain, whine.

[Anonymous Coward]

Five things they can do that will be more constructive than whining about it:

• Implement DomainKeys. Make sure that they sign outgoing mail, so it is far less likely to be caught as spam.
• Reduce the amount of graphics and "noisy" HTML content in the newsletters. Stuff that easily triggers spam filters.
• Make sure their sign-up process is a double-confirmation step. ie: submit email; click on received link to validate the request. Put a very clear "unsubscribe" link in the start of the email.
• Honor bounces. Stop sending to unknown recipients.
• Whitelisting. In the sign-up instructions (and at the bottom of the mail), make sure there are clear "add this address to your email address book" instructions.

to transfer your domain

[alizard]

simply buy a domain renewal/transfer somewhere else and keep an eye on your e-mail, your new domain provider will contact yahoo in a way they can't ignore.

I'm assuming this is a real domain (yourdomain.com) instead of yourdomain.yahoo.com )

Re:to transfer your domain

[amaupin]

simply buy a domain renewal/transfer somewhere else and keep an eye on your e-mail, your new domain provider will contact yahoo in a way they can't ignore.

If only it were that simple. I went through the process a year ago with a domain I bought from Yahoo in 2000.

You have to close out and cancel your Yahoo domain account (counter intuitive), then deal with Melbourne IT, which is the registrar Yahoo uses. (Because Yahoo is not a registrar.)

Only, Melbourne IT will refer you to Yahoo. And Yahoo will refer you to Melbourne IT. It's a fun process that took me a month and a half for a simple domain transfer.

Never, ever, ever, on pain of death, buy a domain from Yahoo.

Re:to transfer your domain

[Anonymous Coward]

> then deal with Melbourne IT

Ah, those guys again... Probably should be in the list of companies not to deal with. Not even indirectly...

there are still dumbasses who use

[alizard]

yahoo mail accounts for anything important?

If it's bulk e-mail, it's probably spam. Use RSS.

[Animats]

If people really want your "opt-in newsletter", offer an RSS feed. People can subscribe if they want. And if they tell their RSS reader to unsubscribe, they get unsubscribed, regardless of what the sender does.

Of course, that's why "newsletter" distributors don't like RSS. It's too easy to get off the list.

Re:If it's bulk e-mail, it's probably spam. Use RS

[canajin56]

I certainly hope you ask to borrow something from somebody some day, and when they want it back, they report your robbery to the police immediately. After all, its theirs, you have it, they don't want you to have it. Theft by any definition, and I hope you get the maximum!

My Mass Mailings Feel Randy's Pain, Too...

[Darklady]

Yahoo is infuriating to work with when wrongly labeled "spam." I'm dealing with a very similar situation to Randy's -- and it's the third time I've had to go through the same largely unresponsive hoops. My problem is that I work within the adult entertainment industry and have my mail hosted by my primary client, whose hosting company handles many other adult clients. If ANY of those entities triggers a spam report, we apparently ALL suffer. As a journalist and event organizer, this can cause unacceptable delays that I often don't know about for days. My favorite part is when Yahoo asks to correspond with my email administrator -- after my email administrator has written to Yahoo and been ignored. Good attention to detail, Yahoo. Maybe once Microsoft owns your ass things will be better, but I'm thinking probably not. It's ironic that I have to go to my Yahoo email and send the messages to other Yahoo users. Why spend the money for a domain if some idiot is just going to label you a spammer without even allowing you the courtesy of a chance to spam anyone? Blah!

My randy male feels ass pain

[Anonymous Coward]

Just sayin'.

His worries are over!

[w0mprat]

No problem for the mailing list now... that he has been slashdotted!

Re:His worries are over!

[RomulusNR]

I admit, that was my motivation for submitting. I'm a long-time subscriber. And somewhere I have a TiT book. Right after upgrading (I'd let my premium lapse years ago), I submitted the story.

The question is, is there anyone at Yahoo! these days reading within 2-3 blogs' copypasta range of Slashdot?

thanks for the warning

[alizard]

... [no actual content - text demanded by slashdot]

Rules

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why you're allowed to create rules. "Allow All from stupid@moron.com"

Re:Bulk mail is still spam, even if it's "wanted"

[Hektor_Troy]

Bulk mail isn't spam. Spam is unsolicited, and bulk doesn't mean unsolicited.

When I built an smtp-server as a personal project, I ran into an interesting conundrum revolving around this.

To reduce the amount of sending my server would do in regards to mailing lists, it would figure out exactly which servers an email would be sent to, connect to it and use SMTPs function of sending one mail to multiple people in 1 (one) connection, saving a lot of bandwith along the way.

Guess what - that gets tagged as "spam" by 95% of all mail servers out there. When I talked to the technicians behind two of the large ISP mail servers in Denmark, they nodded their head at this. See, at some point people decided, outside of RFC, that telling a mail server that this message should be given to more than one of their clients is only done by spammers. So they'd rather have them do a huge amount of redundant connections and sending, than do it the smart way. And no, they didn't say that "bulk mail is spam". They said blocking spam is more important than allowing legitimate bulk emails - even more important than saving bandwidth and processing time.

Yahoo's fault, Randy's problem

[Meorah]

Randy should stop supporting new Yahoo addresses immediately, provide a way for existing users of his list to switch to another email address (no shortage of those) without incurring additional costs, and basically block yahoo.com as an inbound or outbound MTA from his host. Then write a brief explanation of the story and have it pop-up as part of the error anybody receives when they try to subscribe to his list with a yahoo.com email address.

At that point, Yahoo either fixes it or Randy goes on with life never having to deal with this problem again.

I have all Yahoo messages blocked at work, and have Sales and CS educated enough to know when someone says they sent an email and they never received to to ask "is it from a Yahoo address, because we block all of those."

The occassional ticked off customer is much easier to deal with than the cluster-F that is trying to determine whether or not a message from Yahoo is legit.

Personally, I'd drop DomainKeys and go SPF if I was Yahoo, but then what do I know...

I hate meeces to pieces

[shanen]

Not really, but I do hate spammers much more than that. Yahoo is just the leading home of spam, and they might as well throw the babies out with the bathwater. I gave up on Yahoo a long time ago. I do have a few correspondents who still have secondary Yahoo email accounts--but I have no particular expectation that they will get any email that I route that way.

I'm hoping Gmail will actually do something constructive about the spam problem (= something really destructive to the spammers). No skin off my nose if along the way they crush Yahoo as the spam-loving email system it is.

Search on spam to see various anti-spam suggestions, though I think the best one is in a mostly ignored older thread called "Isn't spam the #1 problem with email?"

Re:I hate meeces to pieces

[biobogonics]

Not really, but I do hate spammers much more than that. Yahoo is just the leading home of spam, and they might as well throw the babies out with the bathwater. I gave up on Yahoo a long time ago. I do have a few correspondents who still have secondary Yahoo email accounts--but I have no particular expectation that they will get any email that I route that way.

I'm stuck with Yahoo mail. My ISP doesn't give me a choice. Like other "Baby Bells", our e-mail was outsorced to Yahoo.
I *pay* for e-mail along with business class internet. Recently, outgoing mail to our bookkeeper is refused and incoming mail from our accountant is not delivered. GRRR. Looking at headers, I see that the top listed host's name ends in yahoo.com.

Equivalences

[AdamWill]

From the original article, by the owner of the list:

"It's like shooting a gun into a crowd of people, then walking away before seeing what happened."

So, marking an email as spam accidentally is "like" cold-blooded indiscriminate murder.

No, hold on a minute, I know -

it isn't!

Grow a sense of perspective, you self-important blowhard.

Re:Equivalences

[AdamWill]

Actually, I find it more readable like that. There's two ironies in your reply: it's entirely double spaced, and I am in fact gay. Notwithstanding, you're a homophobic twat, and I hope you suffer some kind of unpleasant experience today.

Yahoo filtering

[TheLink]

"Yahoo's is fucking useless. There is no way you can write your own rules -- why can't I block all email with certain words in the subject, or from a particular domain? "

I don't know why you can't do it.

Anyway I just checked and I still could Click on Options, Filters, Create (Add if you are using the javascript interface) and set: Subject contains "Mod Parent Troll" (match case not selected), Deliver/move message to Trash.

"I do have a smidgin of intelligence, why won't they let me use it directly? No "

I don't know why they won't let you use it directly.

I don't need to use that feature so often, so their "not direct" system works fine for me.

Re:Yahoo filtering

[1u3hr]

Anyway I just checked and I still could Click on Options, Filters, Create

Duh -- you're right. I was looking under "Spam" options. I didn't look at "Mangement" options. I sent an email to their support a couple of years ago asking about this, couldn't get any sensible reply at all, certainly no reference to this feature. Is it perhaps new? I haven't looked at Yahoo's web interface for a couple of years aside from checkijg the spam folder, I use POP all the time.

No matter, thanks.

Re:Yahoo filtering

[TheLink]

It's definitely been there for years. I've been using Yahoo for ages and "Spam protection" is the "new" feature.

Turn off javascript, login to mail.yahoo.com and select the "old" UI. Then you can see what the old yahoo email interface looks like - no "Spam Protection" options, but filtering is there.

Email filtering is not just for spam so I guess they didn't think it should be moved to "Spam Protection".

Hotmail was the one with crap filtering - I haven't checked recently but in the past Hotmail didn't allow you filter based on To/CC.

Back then if someone/something sent email to me, but did not put my name (or even email address) in the To/CC, there was a higher chance it was spam (so only the whitelisted should do that).

Yahoo aren't that bad. They're not as hip as Google, but in general stuff does work, and keeps working. Definitely much better than Hotmail (hotmail can't even remember to renew their domain ;) ).

there is no way to check

[pimpimpim]

in no way can, or even should, yahoo check if one of their millions of users at some website clicked a button to receive e-mail, or even if they pressed the accept link on the subsequent confirmation e-mail (or went to a website and clicked the confirmation link there).

Also, including unsubscribe headers into an e-mail does not make it legit, as others pointed out, this is something many spammers include too.

Either yahoo should turn up their threshold for identifying spam from the amount of users clicking "this is spam", or this guy has been the subject of a malicious attack.

Re:there is no way to check

[mysidia]

Click-on-a-link sounds like an outright foolish way to attempt to implement opt-in. It is a clear security risk for a user to attempt to navigate to a link presented in an e-mail.

Opt-in is done in the vast majority of cases by receiving a 'confirmation request' and replying to that confirmation request.

When the user sends the reply e-mail, simple pattern matching can identify the fact that they are responding to what is likely a confirmation message.

Even if 1000 users out of 50,000 recipients click "this is spam," that doesn't mean it's spam.

The problem is the "report spam" button is too convenient, and many people even use it as a substitute for the delete button.

If the "report spam" button displayed a reporting form to request more information, even a drop down list, a paragraph explaining when to report, a checkbox, and OK button, before pushing any kind of report, users might be more inclined to use delete when they should.

I figured out number two!

[muffen]

1) Create Mailing list
2) Get Yahoo! Mail to mark list as spam and post story on slashdot.
3) PROFIT!

put all spammers in jail ...

[e70838]

... and you will see how using internet can be nice.

I remember the good old days (1991, 92, 93). There was xhtalk to know when my girfriend was online (her school was 500 km away). There was also xarchie to find softwares. Using gopher I have read some security notes concerning SunOS vulnerabilities and was able to become root. Finger was also marvellous. I remember having used a server (accesible via telnet) in autralia to find the email address of a friend only from its name and the name of its school. During the nights, the computer rooms were closed, but one friend had a PC with linux (release 0.97, then 0.99pl10 12 14) in his room. This PC was connected to the network. I learned the word SPAM in 1993 on some newsgroup, slightly before the word troll.

lost eden :-(

Re:Bulk mail is still spam, even if it's "wanted"

[clickclickdrone]

>I would assume their ads are text these days...
Why on earth is this marked flamebait?

Same Thing

[DeanFox]

I had the same thing happen from the other side after ordering a widget. I signed up for a newsletter when I didn't uncheck a box that was the same color as the background and three pages deeper than I actually went. I confirmed my choice a second time when I pressed the button that said "Estimate Shipping Rates".

Kidding aside something similar did happen. I contacted the vendor I ordered from and told him I reported his junk as SPAM. He was incredulous, the email I got back was full of justifications and rationalizations. After all I liked his product enough to order from him at least once. How could I not want to hear about specials. Besides, if I wanted to be removed all I had to do was go to his site, maneuver through several hard to find pages and fill out forms. In his mind I was the bad guy.

Their goal...

[Anonymous Coward]

Their goal (speaking of the standard Islamic terrorist here) is to get Western troops out of the Arab countries.

I dunno about that. Sounds more like the goals of the Democrats. Methinks the goals of the terrorists are not so lofty.

Re:Their goal...

[Free the Cowards]

They've outright stated that this is what they want. They've taken no action which would indicate otherwise. Why not believe them?

Yahoo can be persuaded to unblock you

[giafly]

Yahoo doesn't negotiate with spammers.

The implication that Yahoo don't listen to bulk emailers who have been incorrectly marked as spam is false. Yahoo can be an annoying company to deal with, run from offshore call-centres with no freedom of action, but with persistence it is possible to get unblocked. My company has has to do this a couple of times (we send to hundreds of opt-in lists), and without whining to Slashdot.

work around

[Anonymous Coward]

If those who really want it, just go into their spam folder and say thsi is not spam, they will continue to get it. Evidently you is not keeping your customers happy.

He needs an intermediary

[Anonymous Coward]

It will cost him money, but the sender's solution is to send the newsletter via an email services company that Yahoo! does listen to. StrongMail, ExactTarget, those kinds of companies. They offer an ISP remediation service that is for dealing with situations exactly like this one, and ISP's listen to them because a) there are only a few of them, so it's not a huge burden to listen, b) they eventually drop the customer if it really turns out to be spam, and c) these companies make a fair bit of email filtering (a hard task) easy, because they can essentially be whitelisted. They aren't perfect by any means, but Yahoo! can't deal with with every individual sender.

Re:Bulk mail is still spam, even if it's "wanted"

[thedistrict]

You'd think it would be easy enough to click the "unsubscribe" button at the bottom of most emails. Marking spam for something you consented to, even if it was a while ago, is pretty irresponsible. I'd also question why people would ever sign up to receive an email chain if they'd one day get tired of reading it.

Yahoo is a spam machine.

[catmistake]

Oh, the irony.

I've been blocking Yahoo for some time.

Re:Yahoo is a spam machine.

[catmistake]

fixed

Short History of STUPIDITY

[gurps_npc]

1. Create a personal email system designed not for mass emailing, but instead for simple one on one communication. As you it is pretty hard to offend a lot of people one on one, lets TRUST everyone.

2.Have some shmuck decided to start using it to send out something they found important to everyone.

3. Have that single bad action get picked up by two seperate idiots. Spammers and mailing listers.

4. Have spam get so bad that people detest it, it is a major problem.

5. Have the obnoxious mailing listes, who are already abusing our personal messengering system get lazy about maintaining their system, not putting in appropriate and neccessary methods that stop sending email to people that don't read their email. (Example: code that auto-replies when the email is opened. If it doesn't get activated 3 times, you are removed from the mailing list. But wait, the 'not a spammer' doing the mailing lists care more about their numbers than offending people.)

5. We creat a system designed to stop unwanted mail.

6. Have the idiots that stole our person to person email system and used it for mass mailing instead of using other viable technology (Feeds and other push technology) get mad that our 'stop unwanted email.'

MAILING LISTS ARE SPAM. Yes, they are the best kind of spam, the kind many people read, but that does NOT change the fact that they are spam. They are bulk mailing that while it may be solicted once, quickly ends up becomgin unsolicated. Solication does not last forever. At best it lasts for maybe six months, and then should be renewed. Or better yet, STOP USING EMAIL. There are other ways to get this done right. The Internet does NOT owe you a way to use email to send out unsolicated bulk mailings.

Re:Short History of STUPIDITY

[Todd Knarr]

No, mailing lists are not spam (at least not the ones with good opt-in subscription). And no, they don't become unsolicited. When you signed up, you did so knowing you were signing up for an ongoing subscription that would result in future mailings. You asked for those future mailings. From then on, those mailings that you asked for are solicited and remain so until such time as you tell the mailing list that you no longer want them (usually by unsubscribing). Whether you want them now or not is irrelevant to the question of whether you asked for them or not.

Re:Bulk mail is still spam, even if it's "wanted"

[VGPowerlord]

I wondered that, too.

My first assumption for being marked Flamebait is because I can't prove that all modern email applications block images. However, given that no one has cited an email client that doesn't block them (and this includes webmail), it's most likely correct.

A Simple Solution

[Skip666Kent]

The first time anyone subscribes to your list, it should by default be for a limited time only. After that time passes, they recieve a final email informing them of how to continue their subscription, otherwise it will expire by default. Re-subscibing for a longer (but still finite) amount of time should be an easy, 1-click procedure. Re-subscribing for permanent membership could be available, but should involve jumping through a hoop or two.

This is a very simple way for mailing lists to take control themselves. It practically guarantees that your total subscriber base will consist of interested, active participants.

It also guarantees that your (apparent) subsciber base will often be a great deal smaller than it was under the old format. TANSTAAFL.

If you don't do this and just want to keep acreting more and more subscribers into a lobster trap that's not easy to exit, that's fine, but nature will take it's course with whatever options are or appear to be at hand, with or without your approval. Right now, hitting that 'SPAM' button is too easy for many to resist.

You can navigate around this reality or wave your arms and rail against it. Good luck.

Add to contacts. Problem solved!

[wikthemighty]

Can't you get around this by just adding the source of the mailings to your contacts?

Seems to work for me.

The responsibility is on the list owner.

[greenhollow]

If you send an email frequently to a list of emails, you need to manage that list. Once a year, or so, you should send a series of 2 - 3 emails that essentially say "Click here to stay on the list." If they do not reply within a month or so, remove them from the list. Then you would truly know who was active on your list.
The problem is that companies like to think they have millions of email contacts, even if some are sent to the spam filter and some individuals may even be dead. Dead people have a hard time unsubscribing no matter how much you encourage them.

Re:Bulk mail is still spam, even if it's "wanted"

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, but it does!
"Spam" is whatever makes me want to click that button, by definition. Force me to register with your website and then send me mail that I did NOT request from you? That's UNSOLICITED in my book, and I'll define you as a spammer right away! The fact the little button allows me to enact my definition does not mean I need to think twice before clicking it, it means YOU have to be much more careful before sending me mail, as it should have been from start!

Oh, these mailing lists are too hard to manage!

[rholland356]

And just how difficult is it for a mailing list owner, being able to edit said list, to sort the list by domain, and split out the yahoo.com addresses?

This is a simple task, really. For a mailing list owner who makes a living by sending a newsletter.

Its been happening for years!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yahoos and AOLers have both been doing this for years.

That's why we banned AOL members from our list back in 2005. After AOL refused to let us know who was reporting us as spam without us paying for some kind of weird accounts.

We haven't banned Yahoo addresses yet b/c all it seems to do is put our emails in to the spam folder. When it starts rejecting or deleting them automatically like AOL, then we'll ban Yahoo as well.

I should note we actually have an even more difficult to subscribe to list. You have to attend one of our events, sign a piece of paper, then respond to the subscription email after we've validated the information.

Anyway we're quickly moving away from email and to password protected RSS feeds. It's a lot better way to distribute information.

Set up a Feedback Loop

[paulbiz]

Many large ISPs such as Hotmail and AOL, and I believe Yahoo, offer a "Feedback loop", which sends you an ARF-formatted e-mail every time someone reports your message as spam. Using that, you can automatically ban them from your list so they never get another message.

Also, make sure your list is double opt-in (so person A can't sign person B up without their consent). Also make sure your mail server isn't replying to spam/worm messages, otherwise you'll be sending lots of replies to real and fake addresses which may be considered spam trap hits by Yahoo's server.

Also set up DomainKeys for your outbound e-mails. I know Yahoo uses that, and it's one more way to make your message more legitimate-looking.

Also check http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/ for more Yahoo hints.