I signed up for the LinkSys forums ages ago to whine about the problems with the WAG-325N series of devices.
I’m usually pretty careful when signing up for new sites to uncheck all the “send me email” boxes – I get enough email already. So I was a bit surprised this morning when I received what looked like unsolicited commercial email from LinkSys to my Gmail address: “the first issue of Linksys by Cisco e-newsletter, Connections.”
Determining the difference between actual spam and sneaky company tactics is a little tricky. Most people probably don’t care and just hit the ‘report spam’ or ‘junk’ or whatever it is in their email client. As a discriminating email nerd though I take the time to figure it out, because it’s often only a few extra seconds of reading and thinking, which I can generally justify.
In this case I decided that this probably wasn’t real spam and instead was either LinkSys being a bit lame and sending me unsolicited email because I’d signed up to their forums, or perhaps I did check the box that says “send me your stuff” – or maybe I missed something in a 400 page Terms and Conditions document that said by signing up it means they can send me email anyway.
At this point, who cares, right? I either want to keep getting the emails or I want to ditch them. My usual practice then is to just scroll immediately to the bottom of the email and look for the unsubscribe link. I saw this:
At first I just saw “managed subscriptions” and groaned internally, because that generally means its a multi-step process to unsubscribe – slow and painful. Then I saw the “one-click unsubscribe” link!
Being able to immediately and simply unsubscribe from email services is really, really important. This sort of link – a clearly labeled link that actually does what it says, instantly and quickly, is something that should be in the bottom of every single email you’re ever sent from a service.
.. except that 3/4’s of emails actually are spam and clicking ANYTHING lets them know the account is still live, thus increasing the value of the email address to their ‘partners’.
I like the sentiment of a one-click unsubscribe, but still wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole.
Yep, that’s a factor, but that’s just something else you can usually tell based on the sender. Anything that is obviously a company with Australian interests I think it’s a no-brainer because we have pretty strict anti-spam laws. Ditto for US companies.
If it was a pharmaceutical company though offering me ch34p p1lls I’d be a bit more wary for sure.