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

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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]

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

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.

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.

Oh, grow up.

[fm6]

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

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: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]

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.

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

[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: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.

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: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

[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.