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Re:How does the Gmail unsubscribe button work? by boomlinde on Saturday May 30, 2020 @04:34AM (#23359537)
> Is the norm that anyone can unsubscribe anyone else from newsletters?

Just use mailto links in List-Unsubscribe.

    List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
Use the same link in the body of your mail for your unsubscribe link.

It's convenient, standardized and removes the need for further confirmation because you know who sent the mail.

That said, I don't see what the big deal is. If you forward a newsletter issue in its entirety to someone else, they hate it and feel confused enough about receiving it to click the unsubscribe link, maybe the sender deserves being unsubscribed. The absolute most you should do at this point IMO is to notify them that they were unsubscribed.

Re:How does the Gmail unsubscribe button work? by zbentley on Saturday May 30, 2020 @08:29AM (#23360689)
I responded to these (and you directly, in one case) elsewhere in these comments:

> Just use mailto links in List-Unsubscribe.

List-Unsubscribe is not widely enough adopted to be the only means of unsubscription (yet): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23360654

> maybe the sender deserves being unsubscribed

That's super presumptive/rude. Also not how interactions between people work, at all. The potential consequences of a mistaken forward-unsubscribe are also often quite large: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23360619

Re:How does the Gmail unsubscribe button work? by boomlinde on Sunday May 31, 2020 @06:24AM (#23368535)
> List-Unsubscribe is not widely enough adopted to be the only means of unsubscription (yet)

I am not suggesting List-Unsubscribe as the only means of unsubscription. Read my post again. It also is widely adopted. gmail.com, Mail (OSX, iOS) and outlook.com together probably represent the majority of clients now and all support List-Unsubscribe.

> That's super presumptive/rude. Also not how interactions between people work, at all. The potential consequences of a mistaken forward-unsubscribe are also often quite large

Maybe my view on the matter is colored by the fact that my friends and family don't send a bunch of useless marketing to me, and I have the decency not to send them any. Still, my suggestion solves the problem if you have it without involving a convoluted process to cancel a subscription. I absolutely could not care less about the dire consequences of not receiving a steady stream of cosmetics coupons, but whatever floats your boat, email-based unsubscribe works.