Perhaps it’s because with the new year I moved to a new email system. With a nice shiny new empty mailbox. It’s inspired me to start cleaning up the crud that fills my inbox these days. And you know, google apps’s spam control is pretty good, not much true spam is getting through. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen a single piece since we cutover on Dec 31.
But, somehow I’ve found my way onto a million mailing lists in the 16 years I’ve had this address. IT journal this, online marketer that, every site I’ve ever done business with or contacted seems to send me daily, weekly, or infrequent emails. Newsletters, special air fares, info about this, info about that. And, I don’t want any of it, or, I want only a very little bit of it.
In the brave new world of the late 00s, most online publishers are very good about an unsubscribe button. The Email Sender and Provider Coalition and the Messaging Anti Abuse Working Group both publish guidelines and work to “fight spam while protecting the delivery of legitimate email”. Bravo. What this means is that most of these mailing list emails I griped about in the last paragraph have a little unsubscribe button at the bottom, which usually goes to a third party provider that promptly takes one off a mail list.
Man I must be hitting buttons like these 20 time a day, grinning all the while. And, my volume is starting to go down. It’s fun. So, if you haven’t made a new years resolution yet, help me in my quest: lets save some of the worlds bits that are wasted by needless emails. Pledge to unsubscribe from unwanted email lists.
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