I never do unsubscribe usually, just filter, as I pretty much assume the same thing, but usually the only real "spam" I get anymore are annoying places I have done business with, that felt they could just add me to their mailing lists.  Not quite spam, but annoying none the less.

Most like that do have responsible methods for unsubscribing - some do not.  Some I can tell are just broken scripting (usually some kludge of asp code usually that doesn't work on anything but ie6), usually using some crappy 3rd party marketing "firm", that I really can't tell if legit or not, but legit enough to con said business into doing "marketing" with them.

If I could tell their management they're stupid for doing business with such a crap org, I would, but none want to hear that nor provide an avenue to do so.  Most are non-technical business that are likely stupid enough to still use IE for everything and wouldn't see a problem anyways (what is linux!?).  Thus I'd rather just cause them some grief, but as you said, probably worthless as any government initiative, or the government itself to think they might do something about it.

-mb


On 07/02/2015 12:54 AM, Mark Jarvis wrote:

Years ago I was told that it was a poor idea to use the unsubscribe links because that simply confirms that someone received & read the email & moves you up in the worthwhileness rating. I also tend to think that believing in the unsubscribe link is in the same category as believing that the Do Not Call List stops all junk calls. Yes, a few jerks give everyone a bad name.

-mj-

Michael Butash wrote on 6/26/2015 9:46 AM:
Good question actually.

I get some idiot recruiter spam (a car dealership and realtor too come to mind) that a few times have tried to use their unsubscribe form, and found it broken, which I half suspect on purpose (or they had a windoze developer code it and only works in ie). 

Either way an annoyance I can't remove myself from, which I take as a violation.  I've love to "give them a referral" for their efforts in annoying me.

-mb