• danA
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    1 year ago

    Gmail does it. Emails from mailing lists often have a header that specifies an email address you can email to unsubscribe (you just need to send an empty email with a subject of “unsubscribe” to the address). Gmail detects this header and asks you if you want to unsubscribe instead of marking as spam. If you do, it sends the unsubscribe email for you.

    • Ubermeisters@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      It usually is a footer, not a header, in my personal experience, these companies don’t want the word “unsibscribe” put in your head until they are done trying to reel you in with other things. It would be asinine to put it as a header.

      Also, the unsibscribe feature in Gmail is not the same as reporting as junk/spam, which Gmail still allows as an option.

      Unsubscribe option attempts to use the email address as you’ve already mentioned. The spam and junk flag automatically moves mail from those addresses into your junk folder. These are not the same things.

      • danA
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        1 year ago

        Sorry, I meant a header as in where the things like the subject line, servers it was sent via, etc. are stored. It’s a part of the email that isn’t user-visible. The unsubscribe email isn’t visible to the user unless you view the raw source of the email, but email clients can use it.

        I know marking as spam isn’t the same as unsubscribing. Gmail is trying to suggest unsubscribing instead of marking as spam which is reasonable (why mark it as spam when you could just unsubscribe and never get it in the first place?)

        • Ubermeisters@lemmy.zip
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          1 year ago

          You mark it as spam so that Google can add it to the metrics and stop allowing that account to spam everyone. If you just unsubscribe it only benefits you. If you flag it as spam it benefits everyone using the service.

          • danA
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            1 year ago

            Technically it’s not considered spam if you opted in. Spam is unsolicited mail.

            • Ubermeisters@lemmy.zip
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              1 year ago

              Technically there’s no authority to determine if you ever did “opt in”, so that is a moot point. I get spam all the time claiming I opted in, when I know I’ve not. Nothing in an email is a guarantee, to include statements that you wanted this email or agreed to be contacted.