I have a question: do you think there is a risk with hitting “unsubscribe” from emails? The last several months, I’ve been trying to reduce the number of emails I receive by unsubscribing from emails that I get that I no longer want (political, travel websites, car repairs, etc etc etc).
However, someone mentioned to me that there is risk in doing this as I might be inadvertently allowing someone to phish me or do some other nefarious thing. In other words, the “unsubscribe” button might be something far worse.
For my work emails, I’m content to let my IT department handle spam etc, but for my personal email, I simply get way too many of them. Some have suggested that, rather than hitting “unsubscribe”, that I merely designate any emailer that I don’t want to receive further communications from as “junk” on my email client.
I would only use the unsubscribe button if I was absolutely sure it was from a legitimate sender (like a company I’d ordered from, but don’t want notices about every single sale). Look at the email on a device with a mouse where you can hover over the links and see if they check out. Otherwise, flag as spam and/or send straight to the delete pile.
For known entities that you signed up for and no longer wish to receive email, it’s fine.
For random spam/garbage, it just confirms you as a valid email address and probably gets you more. That “unsubscribe” link is also quite possibly a link to a virus.
If the unsubscribe option is in the body of the email and the email itself is clearly spam, I don’t use the button.
On my apple mail client sometimes a special section pops up above the sender’s name saying the email is from a mailing list and offering an unsubscribe option. That option I do use sometimes.
If you use icloud email with the apple mail client, then you can move the email to the junk folder and apple’s email AI will figure out it’s spam and start filtering them before they get to you.
Also be sure to look for those sneaky little opt-in/opt-out boxes when ordering stuff online…
…and if you don’t already have a ‘commercial’ email address get one! Anything I order online, any website I register for, etc goes to that email address.
I know what I have subscribed to. I check to see if To: email address is mine. If it is then they already have my email address, so I wouldn’t hesitate to unsubscribe by giving my email address.
I have wondered about this. At my old, less used (full of junk mail) email address, often I do unsubscribe when bored in the car. Perhaps that is hurting more than helping.
I do gmail on my ipad and often use the “Stop Seeing this Ad” option (with “not interested” choice). Can’t be sure if it helps.
But I think that’s the whole point. Generally speaking, the sender knows your email since they sent it to you. But, who knows what is really lurking when you hit “unsubscribe”? It might simply be a disguise for a phish or other hack in the guise of unsubscribing.
Neither did I! Last year, I had a TON of political campaign emails, and I have been laboriously going new ones I get to unsubscribe. But I’ve been doing that for anything I no longer want to get, and it might be exposing me to an attack/hack. I’m just going to hit “spam” unless I am REALLY sure I know from whom; but, then again, can we REALLY know this? I’m not sure I want to take the chance anymore.
I’ll never forget a couple of years ago that I received an email from a Big 4 accounting partner with whom I had worked for years a long time ago. The email looked authentic in every way, and it said “I have a proposal for you” with an attached PDF. I’m usually pretty careful, but this seemed authentic, and I clicked on the PDF. I have no idea what that might have done, but the email wasn’t authentic.
An “unsubscribe” button might be covering up something far more damaging than just unsubscribing or spam.
I am sure that there are far more tech-savvy folks out there that come up with a more effective strategy than I can. Right now, I think the safest course for me is to hit spam and delete. It’s about as quick as clicking on “unsubscribe”.
Also, I just realized all sorts of stuff can be embedded in images downloaded from a sender. I’m changing the automatic download setting on my email client right now!
Seconding (or thirding) the advice to use unsubscribe only when it’s a genuine trusted organization that you just don’t want to get emails from. However, for spam emails, “unsubscribe” signals there is a real person reading the email and that just encourages them to try again and tell their friends. Much better to block, send to your spam folder, or just delete.
If the email originated from a spammer, then pressing the unsubscribe button “validates” your email address as being “attended” - so it’s now become a re-confirmed, active email address that can be resold.
Similar, if your email software allows you NOT to automatically display email images, do keep images “off” until you’ve previewed the textual content an individual email and realize you actually do need visual content. If the email is Spam, then the fetching the images from the spammer’s web server will log the fact that you specifically did open/view the Spam email - thus, validating your email address as active and marketable.
Finally, there are also “Disposition Notification” headers (RFC3798) that some email applications honor, unless you turn those off in the settings/preferences. If those are enabled (or you accidentally clicked “OK” when prompted), the spammer will be notified that you either read or even DELETED the Spam from your Inbox - thus making your email address a “known-good”.
For that reason:
never “unsubscribe” from Spam, or if in doubt - it will do the opposite.
only ever unsubscribe from legitimate businesses/organizations, if you do have the expertise to identify that those emails actually originated from them.
Turn off Disposition Notification in your email application (if available).
Turn off Image Preview in your email application.
(Disclosure: Internet protocols, technology, security, forensics - including Spam/Virus detection/protection is what I do.)
I don’t regularly check my burner/commercial email. But I do use the search box to pull up coupon codes from brands when I’m buying something as there is a decent chance I can find a relevant discount code.