Unsubscribe From Corporate Spam
In addition to their snail-mail block list, the Direct Marketer's Association also runs an email block list. After providing your email address and responding to their verification, you can opt out of receiving a good chunk of email marketing.
Reputable marketers use this list to filter out consumers who, by dint of registering, are probably going to be pretty unreceptive to their messages. — BEN POPKEN
E-mail Preference Service [DMAConsumers.org] (Thanks to AcilletaM!)
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Comments:
What pisses me off is companies that automatically opt me in to their marketing stuff, without providing a consent checkbox. Tracfone did that.
Pfft, why should I have to unsubscribe from something which I never subscribed to in the first place?
Maryland used to have a terrific anti-spam law which I used to sue numerous spammers and collect a good chunk of money. It was declared unconstitutional a few years back. I think the First Amendment needs somewhere on it you can click to unsubscribe from having to listen to stupid people.
//way off topic//
Ben, once again your pics awe and amaze me. You really rock. I'm saving that one.
If your spam filtering ironically filters out the confirmation email (as mine almost did), I'm pretty sure you can just go to .http://preference.the-dma.org/cgi/empsverify.php?your-email-here-with-%40-where-the-@-would-be
For example, joe.shmoe@gmail.com would go to .http://preference.the-dma.org/cgi/empsverify.php?email=joe.shmoe%40gmail.com
There's no unique data in the confirmation link they send you beyond your address, is my point. Ignore that initial '.' I had to put in for formatting, and of course, your mileage may vary.
I've got a little tip for those of us that don't have a personal email server and use Gmail:
add a +someword right before the @ sign when you sign up for things (i.e. youremailaddress+spam@gmail.com). You will still get the email but it's a good way to track it.
Yea some places can still strip that off but it works sometimes.
kweee: "why should I have to unsubscribe from something which I never subscribed to in the first place?"
Because you have to, that's why. Dude, why ask why? Just be grateful to the Consumerist for helping us reduce our spam. Thank you Consumerist.
I have my own domain name as well as email server so I basically can have unlimited email addresses that point to one or more mail accounts. I use this to tag most of my email addresses I give out, like registering for sites, product registration, business cards, and this site as well. (So don't sell me out Ben)
What I've found is that some of these start getting spam after some time, even from reputable companies. I've gotten spam from tagged addresses I've used to register a popular-brand computer and an address I used to order from an online catalog shop, for example.
I've complained to some of these companies and get the same response, that they don't sell or rent their email lists without permission.
What I believe happens is, employees within many companies scarf their email lists and sell them to spammers. It's not exactly hard. For example, where I work I could get tens of thousands of addresses out of my employer's databases.
So my thoughts on the DMA list is that it will do little good because reputable companies are not the real problem, they usually honor unsubscribe requests. Plus there's always the risk that some IT dweeb inside DMA could take the entire list and sell it to spammers making matters worse.