Re: Yahoo and their mail filters..

[Brian Keefer <chort () smtps net>]

On Feb 26, 2009, at 6:59 AM, John Levine wrote:

> > Nor should they.  Anyone who actually researches this stuff knows  
> > that
> > the vast majority of "unsub" links simply confirm you as a live  
> > target
> > who will click on random links sent to them through e-mail.
>
> That's the conventional wisdom, not confirmed by research.  The FTC
> tried it in 2002 and found that opt-out made the spam load drop
> slightly, and I don't see any reason to think it would be different
> today.
>
> http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2002/04/51517
>
> R's,
> John

The number of messages in their test is not that large, and it also  
sounds like a large majority of those were mailto: links.  It's  
unsurprising they didn't go any where.  These days they're pretty much  
all http: links going to botnet webhosts.

Also, from the same article:
"Nonetheless, the risks of responding to spammers are far from  
illusory, said Jeff Richards, vice president of the consulting firm  
ePrivacy Group.

...

when he sent removal requests to spammers of the more obvious con  
artist variety, in particular for messages emanating from exotic  
locales in Eastern Europe and Asia, Richards said he frequently wound  
up receiving more e-mail."

From my own experience with a Hotmail account a few years earlier  
(late '90s), I tried to unsubscribe from every single e-mail I got and  
went from a few dozen spams a week to several hundred very quickly.

This also pre-dates organized crime becoming heavily involved, and pre- 
dates the obsession with browser exploits.  Back then a lot of spam  
was sent by semi-legitimate marketers from the US.  These days all the  
bad guys are out to get you to click on a single link.

--
bk