Ask HN: Blocking All CRMs and Email Mailing Lists

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40197690

by briandear • 2 years ago

3 6 2 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

It seems like political campaigns heavily use Salesforce's Pardot and it seems like many companies use Mailchimp, Constant Contact, and similar solutions.

I'm at my wits end considering that no matter how many hours I spend unsubscribing, someone else is sending me email I don't want.

Is there an actual service that can block all emails sent from CRM companies or Newsletter providers?

I'm at the point where I don't want to go through the unsubscribe process for dozens and dozens of individual companies each day. I want to unsubscribe from anything and everything sent by "Marketing automation" companies.

If it matters, I use iCloud email (along with a few other providers,) but Gmail-specific tools aren't helpful.

I would love to be able to contact Salesforce and other CRM providers and just say, "don't let any of your customers ever email me."

Is there a way out of this? (BTW, unroll.me and similar services are anti-patterns -- they can read all of your email and sell your email data and on top of that, they don't even unsubscribe you, they just trash received emails.)

Has anyone solved this problem? I'd pay $100 right now for an inbox free from any email that contains an "unsubscribe" link. I realize that I can create mail rules in my Apple mail client. However, that's not stopping the sending in the first place. (And client-side mail rules are useless unless the specific client is always running.)

Grimeton• 2 years ago

Ever wondered if those are cold e-mails they send and by "unsubscribing" you demonstrate that the e-mail really exists?

briandear2• 2 years ago

I exactly wonder that. And it's infuriating. Unsub and you've validated. Don't unsubscribe and you keep getting them.

That's why I want to block all CRMs and Mailchimp-type services completely.

I'm not a fan of big regulation, but I think people should have to pay me to send an email or an SMS. Someone else shouldn't have the right to infringe on my right to not be interrupted unless they pay me.

LinuxBender2• 2 years ago

Has anyone solved this problem?

Yes, many here use aliases a.k.a. canaries in this case on mail providers that support this or on their own mail servers they self host.

- One can change their email with each vendor to use a specific alias. Fastmail is an example of one of the mail providers that supports this. Create unique aliases for each vendor and put the vendor name in the comment field of the web interface but keep the alias generic and realistic enough that the vendor does not reject it or realize that it is a canary. Once you are confident you have done this for ever thing you interact with, create a rule to dump all emails from your previous email address into a folder, mark as read and maybe check it once a week or month, flagging the UCE as spam. Fastmail have several domains you can create aliases on, and/or you can also use your own domains.

When a company starts abusing one of your aliases, you now know who leaked or cross-marketed your email address. You can create a rule to move emails to that alias into a folder and mark as read. Or if its 100% garbage, a rule to move emails sent to that alias to Trash and set the retention policy on Trash to a month. Optionally contacting them and voicing your dissatisfaction and that you have voted with your wallet.

- Specific to your Unsubscribe request, mail providers like Fastmail also support making rules on email content, so one could add a rule saying if the Body contains "unsubscribe" to move it to Trash and mark as read.

- Another method which only a small set of people here use is to self host email which is a big topic in and of itself then create DISCARD rules in Postfix and/or block CIDR blocks of email campaign providers yes, this is heavy handed and can drop non UCE. On my self hosted mail servers I can REJECT an email and give the spammer a friendly message of my choice. So if the body contains "unsubscribe" I can REJECT the email, at the risk of that company deleting my account which saves me the time of deleting it.

briandear2• 2 years ago

- Specific to your Unsubscribe request, mail providers like Fastmail also support making rules on email content, so one could add a rule saying if the Body contains "unsubscribe" to move it to Trash and mark as read.

This is a great idea. I would love to have a script that also reports it as spam. Sorry to the "legit" emailers, but it's really not my problem. Even the "legit" emailers abuse people with their "Sorry we made a mistake" shenanigans trying to get people to open their stupid content.

If I want to be updated on your "Today Only Black Friday Deal" or be pestered to "Chip in $5" to your stupid political campaign, I'll visit your website for those updates. If I need to be reminded about your awesome product, then your product isn't really that awesome.

LinuxBender2• 2 years ago

I would love to have a script that also reports it as spam.

In self hosted email setups this is very easy to do reporting to SpamCop and others. Someone else would have to chime in if they know of commercial solutions that allow custom scripting or custom reject messages. Most of my experience is around self hosted but that is a very big topic.

For the domains I have pointed at Fastmail, they do a decent job figuring out if something is spam. They also give the option to adjust the score/threshold at which something is spam and the threshold at which they just discard the email. This is off by default. Their web interface allows reporting the spam.

noashavit• 2 years ago

Any 3rd-party solution will have to read your emails in order to categorize those that are from mailing lists and flag them/take action. https://www.trimbox.io/ is a great simple example

If you don't want to authorize an app to do that, consider utilizing inbox rules to automatically delete those emails, but for that you will need to find patterns in subject lines/use of your name/ keywords (how about auto archive every email with the word "donate", or move it to a folder you can review when you want to) etc. And just keep optimizing.

CAN-spam act requires every email have an unsubscribe link and that you are removed from lists when you ask too. If these guidelines aren't followed those organizations can be liable to very large fines.

Hope this helps. I'm personally a Gmail user and the "Promotions" and "Social" tabs have done wonders for me inbox

Ask HN: Blocking All CRMs and Email Mailing Lists

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