Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic'

Re:Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic' by phreack on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @03:19AM (#26163968)

One of the reasons I get weary of going through the unsubscribe route is that it's always a gray-on-white link incredibly hidden at the bottom of the email, like every single time. It's a miracle it's there at all. It'd be much simpler to have it at the top and actually visible by eyes instead, if you just want to keep engaged users on your list.

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Re:Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic' by thepete2 on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @03:23AM (#26164008)

There should be an unsubscribe email header for newsletters. Then it could even be a feature for mail clients.

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Re:Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic' by progval on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @03:57AM (#26164248)

I can't tell if it's sarcasm. Just in case it is not: there is already such a standard header, it's List-Unsubscribe and it's a used by all mailing lists and "legit" ads I can think of. (And may of the "high quality" spam too.) https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8058

It is unfortunately not implemented by most email clients.

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Re:Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic' by mcv on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @05:26AM (#26164841)

Maybe email clients should show that unsubscribe button then. And also, when someone reports something as spam that has a legitimate unsubscribe link, offer to unsubscribe instead.

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Re:Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic' by hesk on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @05:50AM (#26164992)

The macOS mail client shows an unsubscribe button.

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Re:Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic' by kergonath on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @01:01PM (#26169390)

The iOS default Mail app too.

AFAIK, Gmail does as well.

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Re:Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic' by corty on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @03:33AM (#26164068)

There is, just many email marketing people leave it out to cut down on the unsubscribe rate. Subscribing has to be easy and in-the-face (like those 'helpful' popups on websites), unsubscribing has to be almost impossible. Not totally impossible, mind you, because otherwise courts get angry.

Better email clients know to use the header, and e.g. gmail even asks about properly unsubscribing when marking a newsletter with that header as spam iirc.

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Re:Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic' by eli on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @02:02PM (#26170117)

IMHO if you don't use the header that makes it easy for people to unsubscribe then you don't get to complain about people Marking Spam instead.

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Re:Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic' by jeroenhd on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @03:35AM (#26164093)

Gmail has this, it's in one of the dropdown menus. If you mark something with the right email header as spam, it even ask if you wish to unsubscribe instead.

Spam companies often use this to check if the email address they've targeted is real because they get callbacks from legitimate users. I've only seen one or two legitimate uses of the header as far as I can remember.

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Re:Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic' by wruza on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @05:27AM (#26164848)

in one of the dropdown menus

As if gmail ui wasn’t already obscure af. They could make “don’t want this anymore” button that uses unsubscribe header first and if it doesn’t work, mark it as spam automatically. Many shady practices would disappear at that same moment, but who cares when making six figures a year.

If only email could work as a modern instant messenger - no spam, reacting to explicit and well-defined user intents, allowing file transfer without limitations that render that function useless, and delivering messages in less than a second.

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Re:Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic' by joombaga on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @03:53PM (#26171599)

This isn't exactly what you proposed, but if a sender did include the list-unsubscribe header and you click "Report Spam" instead, Gmail will ask you if you want to unsubscribe as well.

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Re:Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic' by dubya on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @09:43AM (#26166773)

I think it used to be more prominent on gmail. Now it's a little link next to the name of the sender at the very top when the email is opened. But not all list messages have it, and for some, gmail even hides the unsubscribe link below a [Message clipped] link to the full email.

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Re:Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic' by Nextgrid on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @03:26AM (#26164024)

There is and some e-mail clients use it when it's present.

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Re:Spy pixels in emails 'have become endemic' by lloeki on Wednesday February 17, 2021 @03:51AM (#26164196)

I’ve seen something like this on Apple Mail.

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