I always assumed that the unsubscribe link in email/SMS spam was part of the scam.
I.e., they didn't know if the spam ever reached an actual inbox until you followed the unsubscribe link.
hereme888 · 21m ago
email aliases are the only real protection I've ever found.
Fastmail offers almost unlimited aliases, and throwaway addresses.
Others are starting to do it.
I doubt gmail will ever offer aliases or similar protections.
ProllyInfamous · 6m ago
I don't use email anymore, but the last few years I did was only possible because I owned a domain name and had a catch-all set up.
You can then immediately isolate any bad actors, and don't have to rely upon a `+` sign (easily filtered) to "differentiate" email addresses. More-commonly-used logins can then be preliminarily filtered to separate internal email accounts (e.g. known-junk can be sent to rarely-accessed account; family contacts can be sent to notifications).
Disposal8433 · 16m ago
It's sad because all the new "private emails" like Tuta only offer a very limited number of aliases. Legit throwaway addresses offer a good compromise between privacy and security.
> try to count how many times you clicked “Delete” on junk or unwanted inbox messages
I don't understand that sentence in the article though. I click on "report spam" every time because that's what it is, even if it's a legitimate business that I used in the past. They use dark patterns to make you subscribe, but it's not honest, therefore -> spam.
knorthfield · 12m ago
“Spam” as a neologism doesn’t have a widely agreed upon shared definition. The most apt would seem to be “email I don’t want”. But that’s not too helpful when third party gatekeepers are trying to mass assign status to an email. The same email could be unwanted by one person and very gratefully received by the next.
ryoshu · 12m ago
Gmail has aliases that have a + in them, e.g. foo@gmail.com -> foo+bar@gmail.com. I use them for subscriptions: foo+substack@gmail.com, etc.
nahkoots · 15m ago
Can't you use youraddress.servicename@gmail.com? I thought gmail strips whatever comes after the dot. (I don't have a google account, so I could be wrong or maybe it was a different character, but I remember reading about it a couple times on here.)
eldridgea · 12m ago
I believe it strips everything after a "+" so you can use youraddress+servicename@gmail.com.
It ignores periods so you could also use your.address@gmail.com or y.ouraddress@gmail.com or whatever.
Some sides block plus addressing but that's what I use a lot of the time.
2bluesc · 9m ago
I think you mean
yourname+servicename@gmail.com
From my experience, many (bad) websites consider "+" an invalid character and prevent you from using the address in this form.
Smart spammers can just strip the service name since it works the same for all Gmail users.
Really need dedicated addresses like Fastmail's Masked Addresses.
jussaying2 · 12m ago
You're thinking of the + character. youremail+servicename@gmail.com will still be delivered to you.
Gmail ignores dot characters. y.o.u.r.e.m.a.i.l@gmail.com is equivalent to youremail@gmail.com
I.e., they didn't know if the spam ever reached an actual inbox until you followed the unsubscribe link.
I doubt gmail will ever offer aliases or similar protections.
You can then immediately isolate any bad actors, and don't have to rely upon a `+` sign (easily filtered) to "differentiate" email addresses. More-commonly-used logins can then be preliminarily filtered to separate internal email accounts (e.g. known-junk can be sent to rarely-accessed account; family contacts can be sent to notifications).
> try to count how many times you clicked “Delete” on junk or unwanted inbox messages
I don't understand that sentence in the article though. I click on "report spam" every time because that's what it is, even if it's a legitimate business that I used in the past. They use dark patterns to make you subscribe, but it's not honest, therefore -> spam.
It ignores periods so you could also use your.address@gmail.com or y.ouraddress@gmail.com or whatever.
Some sides block plus addressing but that's what I use a lot of the time.
yourname+servicename@gmail.com
From my experience, many (bad) websites consider "+" an invalid character and prevent you from using the address in this form.
Smart spammers can just strip the service name since it works the same for all Gmail users.
Really need dedicated addresses like Fastmail's Masked Addresses.
Gmail ignores dot characters. y.o.u.r.e.m.a.i.l@gmail.com is equivalent to youremail@gmail.com
/s