I created a similar service earlier this year which runs on exactly the same idea (forwarding emails to unsubscribe to them). It's nice to see some validation for the idea on HN.<p>I've attacked the problem from a different angle though - I've tried to automate the service a lot more. Automatically looking for the unsubscribe button and filling out any HTML forms that appear etc. It doesn't always work but it's been fun trying to work out ways to automate the different steps etc.<p>If anyone is interested in a similar product with a slightly different way of doing things, different pricing and a web UI, please check out:
<a href="https://www.stopthat.email/" rel="nofollow">https://www.stopthat.email/</a><p>Hopefully you don't mind the health competition ryanmjacobs.
While I do see the value of such a service, I wouldn't trust anyone with unsubscribe links I receive.<p>I have seen companies generating an API key for the unsubscribe button, where the key can be used to perform other actions and lead to account takeover
Btw, how specific is the American CAN-SPAM act in terms of how the unsubscribe link should work? In my country I sometimes get emails with unsubscribe links that require you to log in first, which can be a pain to pull out the credentials when you don't really remember signing up for it in the first place. Does CAN-SPAM specify, say, that an unsubscribe link 1)must not require a login? 2)must lead to completion of the subscribe process within x steps?
My e-mail address is on a 3rd party list that is sold repeatedly to marketers. The marketers do not employ unsubscribe links or provide a means to get off of their list in the e-mail. I'd rather not engage them and ask their source.<p>Is there a way to learn who the original list holder is and get my address off?
I solved the spam problem by using a different email address every time I sign up for something.<p>When I receive a spam message, I get an in-message alert, I know instantly who leaked my email address, & I can shut it down with a single click.<p>Originally I used simple postfix virtual addresses but I since upgraded it to a SaaS with a browser extension and iOS/android app.<p>Email me for details if you want to beta test.<p>xe2g at proxyto.me
Your pricing model does seem to need some work. Credits would likely be a better match than a monthly service. It would better fit the nature of the problem. But, kudos on offering a manual service in a space where automation can easily fail.
Search for emails with the word "unsubscribe".<p>Then select-all and Mark as spam!<p>Edit: Or go through each result, some email clients will highlight the search term "unsubscribe" after search, making the unsubscribe link easier to find.
All my emails that come from domains I have not whitelisted get thrown in the trash. Works pretty well.<p>Same deal with my phone. Any private or unknown number gets the mail box which I never check and SMS trashed.
Cool idea I suppose, but for $5/month wouldn’t I just not sign up to those mailing lists in the first place?<p>Or get another email address?<p>This doesn’t feel very sustainable.
>At this time, the only processor is my high-school sister. I pay her $15/hour.<p>I lol'ed. Also, I like your idea and you philosophy [0]. Good luck!<p>[0] <a href="https://radious.co/philosophy.txt" rel="nofollow">https://radious.co/philosophy.txt</a>
Nice idea!<p>The 'privacy' section is a bit too vague. Sure, you aren't selling my data, but what are you doing with it? What happens to the emails you receive - are they archived or stored, or do you delete them? How secure are they kept?<p>These messages could have lots of private data in them, even simple things like usernames might be of value to hackers.
This reminds me of an article maybe ten years back on how to a static email can change its appearance when it’s forwarded so as to hide the unsubscribe button so forwardees can’t unsubscribe (accidentally or otherwise) the forwarder. As I recall, there were a few different solutions that were each specific to the mail client doing the forwarding (using css that matches the DOM structure of the forwarded content).<p>I think it’s still an open question because federal regulations still require either a one-click unsubscribe or at most an unsubscribe link leading directly to a form with at most a single required input being the email address to unsubscribe, i.e. no chance to verify the clicker.
What about shady services that won't unsubscribe your email even if you do it from their admin panel or just outright doesn't work? What about services that provide a really complicated unsubscribtion procedure, e.g. enter password, fill multi-page quiz why you are leaving, wait up to 24h for some code that you will have no idea where to enter. And finally, I suspect there are just plain evil "services" that after unsubscribing will put up your email on various spam lists - have fun with even more spam.<p>Good behaving email marketing services are not the problem, I would gladly pay for a service that deals with those shady ones and maybe even helps to battle spambots on a global scale, by reporting spam to appropriate authorities and even using GDPR laws to stop them. Tried using spamcop once, but most reports end up "nulled" and not actually reported.
My solutions:<p>On my google mail account, I automatically forward all emails containing the word "unsubscribe" to a spam folder and mark them as read.<p>Also: I have two email accounts. One for signups and one for actual communication. Works fine.
I've gotten into the habit of spam labeling these emails, hoping they contribute to the great spam filter in the sky. This works much better than unsubscribing because most of these emails aren't even intended for me but the jerks who keep using my email address to sign up for services and aren't required to verify the email address they provided.<p>One thing I've realized having moved away from Gmail to fastmail, is the importance of owning your spam data as I had to train Fastmail's spam system.
What kind of person needs 60 unsubscribes per month? That seems like an insane number of newsletters/marketing lists to be subscribed to.<p>Even if they did need it, they wouldn't need it for more than 2-3 months.
This is awesome and I have a question that is somewhat relevant. Is there a known way to take care of marketing/up-sell disguised as "service-related" emails from Xfinity or the GrubHub marketing emails that automatically re-subscribe you every time you order food?
I do not want to sound negative but my honest opinion is that you need to work on your price model. Very few people will be ready to pay $5-10 per month(!) for such small convenience. Assuming that you do mostly automatic processing your actual costs should be really small (per user). You can probably offer this service for $5/year and still make profit, while attracting more users.
I find it fitting that #1 on your Wall of Shame is Uber. I've lost count of how many times I've tried to unsubscribe from their marketing. Even marking it as spam in Gmail dosen't seem to help.
I'm not sure I understand. If I wasn't going to use my email, why would I care if it unsubscribed or not? What's the difference between this and just using a fake email?
I honestly have never wanted to receive mail from anyone other than a real human being. There is not a single 'account update' or marketing mail, etc.. that I am happy to see, nor has there ever been.<p>Does anyone actually enjoy those mails? How is it any better than the classic physical letterbox spam that used to be more common?
The site says that the processor is the creator's high schooler sister. What's to stop someone from buying credits and sending the processor nsfw content?<p>Personally, I'd be really uncomfortable opening up a service like this with underage family members involved. Why not MTurk?
Just a thought: what about focusing on the really annoying emails? So that when someone who is not very techie can't figure out why they keep getting the damn emails, they forward them to you? Rather than as a general purpose service.<p>Also, implement as a gmail plugin if that's possible.
Another solution is to create a different email address for each website/newsletter. This can be done quite easily with services like SimpleLogin or 33mail. This solution also makes this harder to track you online, therefore protect your privacy.
As someone who’s responsible for sending emails, all of the comments about “marking it as spam is easier than unsubscribing” really make me cringe.<p>For several reasons:<p>1. If you subscribe to a list then please please please take the time to locate the very clearly marked unsubscribe link, or use the one that gmail or your other email client shows. I spend a lot of time making sure it’s suuuper easy to unsubscribe.
2. Spammers know how to get around spam protections when they want to. They can switch domains and do other shady stuff a legit company can’t, so by marking my email as spam because it’s “easier” you’re not helping the fight against spam but rather hurting a legitimate email sender.<p>Now, if you can’t unsubscribe (because there’s no link, it’s broken, or simply doesn’t actually unsubscribe), and this is a legit company, please please please let them know.<p>If after all of this you still can’t unsubscribe, hit that spam button twice!
How does this work from a technical perspective? If I forward mail to this service instead of clicking the 'unsubscribe' link, then how do they 'unsubscribe' me on my behalf? In order to complete the unsubscription process, the newsletter owner needs to receive an email (usually generated automatically by the mail client when clicking the 'unsubscribe link') that comes from the person being unsubscribed. If I outsource this process, this means that 'please-unsubscribe.com' will need to spoof emails from me on my behalf and send them the email specified in the List-Unsubscribe email header. If spoofed emails are not used and they come from 'please-unsubscribe.com' this won't be very actionable to the newsletter owner. From their perspective, they're now going to get 'unsubscribe' notifications that all come from an email at 'please-unsubscribe.com' which never signed up to the newsletter in the first place.<p>This all assumes that the newsletter unsubscription process is using the email based method instead of the link based method (which is a good assumption email-based is more common).
I think the way you've set it up is really great, allowing the user to try out/start using the product and just let them when they owe money seems very simple.<p>However, personally I would not use it as I find it easy to unsubscribe via gmail already.
The pricing for this is ridiculous. Far easier to just unsubscribe + report to spam + set a filter if that doesn't work. This takes almost no time for me currently because I unsubscribe diligently.
"We will manually unsubscribe you"<p>So, you promise to click on any link called "unsubscribe" in any email we forward to you?<p>Somehow this sounds dangerous. I do hope you are doing that in a proper sandbox or virtual machine.
Is there some way to add this as some kind of browser extension? I can totally see using this for people’s parents as long as they just get a big fat unsubscribe button in their UI.
Requiring users to unsubscribe from something that they didn't explicitly opt-in to in the first place is the wrong approach.<p>Services which spam users in such a fashion are malicious.
Apple Mail parses the unscribe link and offers an unscribe button on the top of the message. That's easier than a forward and not yet another service.
Haha! That's so expensive. 10 quid a month for the sometimes minor convenience of not hitting the block button when an email has no unsubscribe at the bottom. Is this really the same value as comparably priced subscription services? How did they come up with this pricing model?<p>Absolutely outrageous.<p>Oh, but it's only the price of three latés /s
Emails in the US have an unsubscribe link, and failing that web email clients have "report spam" links. Don't understand the need for this service.