Opting out of something you asked to receive is the courteous thing to do. If your interests have changed and what you signed up for is no longer relevant to you, it's the best thing all around. The company doesn't have to keep trying to send you emails that you don't want which might be getting rejected by your mail server using cryptic messages (for example, major ISPs use some variant of a 4NN response such as Yahoo's 451 message deferred) making your mail server waste resources rejecting messages you don't want. The sending mail server also keeps retrying until it either gives up as undeliverable or until it eventually gets into your mailbox. If it makes it to your inbox then you waste your time marking it as spam again. Or maybe it goes into your spam folder where you waste your time reviewing the messages to ensure there were no false positives. It also penalizes other users who actually do want to receive the email since that email has a higher likelihood of getting delayed or undelivered because of your actions.
By all means mark as spam stuff you didn't opt in to receive. But marking stuff you did opt in to receive is the digital equivalent of hanging up on your best friend when he calls to see if you'd like to go for your usual weekly coffee. He keeps calling back thinking there was a phone problem and you keep hanging up on him. Wouldn't it be better if you just said "Hey dude, I know we agreed to go for coffee every Monday but I actually stopped drinking coffee a few weeks ago."
"Or maybe it goes into your spam folder where you waste your time reviewing the messages to ensure there were no false positives. It also penalizes other users who actually do want to receive the email since that email has a higher likelihood of getting delayed or undelivered because of your actions."
I don't check my spam folder, if it's really important and by some fluke chance their email gets marked as spam, they can call me, my number is just as readily available as my email address to those who need to know it. I use Gmail, and haven't had to check my spam folder in years.
Further, I'd argue it's the company sending the emails who is penalizing the legitimate users by not providing an unsubscribe link (or equivalent) in the email. My process is simple: if I receive a newsletter that was opted in to that I don't want to receive anymore I look for an unsubscribe link and if I can't find one I email the admin explaining why I think they should have one and requesting that they remove me manually (intended to be a penalty for not providing a sufficiently automated mechanism). If the emails persist, I will mark them as spam and if I'm feeling particularly resentful, I'll set up a filter to forward them all back at the admin.
If they're providing an easy way to opt out, marking it as spam is overkill. However, having to login in order to opt out is inappropriate and potentially illegal.
"...marking stuff [as spam that] you did opt in to receive is the digital equivalent of hanging up on your best friend when he calls to see if you'd like to go for your usual weekly coffee."
I call shenanigans.
Bad analogy, a better one would go like this;
Your friend calls you asking if you want to go out for coffee, and you say no. 5 minutes later, he calls back asking again if you want to go out for coffee, and you say 'no, stop calling me'. Again 5 minutes later he calls you back, so you block his number.
You've tried to tell them you don't want them to contact you anymore, yet they persist. That my friend is spam, and I will mark it appropriately.
Marking emails as spam willy-nilly can hurt legit companies. I generally only do it if I didn't opt-in, or if they don't provide a one-click unsubscribe or ignore the unsubscribe request. It's good karma to not be a dick.
Part of the definition of spam is that it's unsolicited, in the sense of spam filtering. The more casual and loose definition includes anything unwanted and that's fine but we shouldn't extend that definition to spam filtering. If you signed up for it then unsubscribe if you don't want it.
"If you signed up for it then unsubscribe if you don't want it."
In virtually all cases where this occurs I have signed up for the mailing implicitly (by buying something from a company and thus establishing a 'relationship') or accidentally (didn't notice they had conveniently pre-checked a 'spam me please' option in an installer or on a website).
And FWIW even for mails I don't want, I do try their unsubscribe link first and use that if it is just a few clicks to get me off the list. If their unsubscribe method is unreasonably complex (any more than two clicks is unreasonably complex, removing me from their database should be just as simple as adding me was), yes, I'll mark them as spam, and I believe they fully deserve it.
> I’m not sure how this works but I use Mail’s filter for my aggressive filtering and I also use Gmail’s filter for general purpose pre-filtering. It seems to me like I’m free to do whatever I want with my own filter, but maybe I’m marking mail also for Google as spam if I move it to the respective folder? I wouldn’t want to do that.
Oh, in Mail it might be different if Apple doesn't use that data to train it's default filter. Which seems unlikely.
I guess I don't know if Google does, I just assume they do because they're data junkies.
A simple solution I think would be to change the "Spam" button to instead read "I didn't sign up for this". That would be much less open to interpretation based on the user's own personl definition of "spam".
It is an abuse of a system designed to stop unsolicited email. You're basically ruining that system every time you do that. Someone who wants to get that email may now miss out on it. If you signed up for it, unsubscribe from it. Hitting spam is very selfish.
I think the problem here is one of scope. Your definition of spam is much wider, encompassing the world at large -- some of whom may want said email. My definition of spam is much narrower, I'm concerned only with what I do and do not want.
If I subscribe to a newsletter, that's not spam. If I try to unsubscribe and can do so with one click or with one click and entering my email address, that's not spam. If I try to unsubscribe and am forced to login (which is illegal in the states, need I remind you) or cannot figure out how to unsubscribe, I categorize that as spam. It is not wanted by me.
Even if it is a newsletter, if you don't let me unsubscribe, that's still spam. You don't get to avoid being labeled as spam just because at some point in the distant past I subscribed and now can't unsubscribe.
Call it selfish if you like, but who else is going to look out for my inbox? Certainly not the groups sending the emails, that's for sure.
Yes, but remember you benefit from combined spam filter heuristics based on the aggregate of all user's marking email as spam. So if you falsely mark legitimate email as spam you're pissing in the well for everyone else.
