Despite what some people (e.g., Mark Gimein) contend, there’s still plenty of spam going around. I know. I get a ton — I’m one of those folks who has had the same e-mail address for almost 15 years now, so I’m on every mailing list in the world. (Luckily there are folks like Paul Cunningham to remind me that I’m not crazy. It’s really there.)
SpamAssassin (on my e-mail server) and Thunderbird (on my desktop) will catch all but one or two messages a day without false positives. But Outlook at work doesn’t have a spam filter, so from 8:30 – 5:30 I get everything SpamAssassin doesn’t catch. Which can be plenty.
I thought about it the other day, and I mentally divided my spam into two groups: “true” spam, such as stock scams, drugs, Nigerian princes, etc.; and “unwanted commercial e-mail” from legit companies that have decided they have the right to add me to their e-mail lists, although I’ve never done business with them. I’m talking to you, Crate and Barrel!
The latter (real-company spam) outweighs the former by a significant amount.
Normally when I get Crate and Barrel or National Auction List crap, I just delete it, maybe with a mumbled curse. But then I decided to try something: unsubscribing.
At one point, we (i.e., tech writers) cautioned people not to use the unsubscribe link in a spam message, because all it did was tell the spammer your address was working — ergo, you’d get even more. But since the CAN-SPAM law took effect, many legitimate companies that send spam have unsubscribe links that actually work. Or so I tell myself.
So I’m starting to use them. When I get junk mail from a real company, I actually click the unsubscribe button. It seems to work. In fact, in a lot of cases I’m almost positive it will work because they use a well-known service like Constant Contact. So slowly but surely I’m trying to get myself off as many of these lists as possible.
Yes, it still ticks me off that Crate & Barrel and Sears and National Auction List and a host of others think they have the right to add me to their lists. But at least they let me remove myself. It’s annoying, but if my junk mail drops as much as I think it will, it’s worth it.
PS: For the rest of the spam, I stick by the suggestion I made in 2007.
