The Born Loser by Art and Chip Sansom for December 08, 2013

Nearest thing to immortality – Getting your name on a mailing list.

I bought some thread by mail order about 3 years ago and I’m still getting their catalogs.

A lot of (if not most) companies’ emails trying to sell you something have a prompt allowing you to “unsubscribe” to their spam. It’s usually in a very small font at the bottom, but it’s worth seeking them out. Every so often I have to go through my inbox and do that, but it seems to work.

There’s a politician I used to like, before he went off the deep end a few years ago. Been hitting “Unsubscribe” on his emails for ages, yet STILL getting them. Just started marking them as “Junk”.

they also get your addrese from sweepstakes you enter as a 3d party

I have a simple little button on my e-mail panel that says,“SPAM.” I click that and all correspondence goes in my SPAM folder, never to be seen again.

The comics make fun, but it is the law. Yes, you will get a confirmation email from the legitimate businesses that your email has been removed. True spammers don’t care. That is why I block that particular email address. My spam email block list is now in the hundreds.

The problem with some of the SPAM emails (not legitimate companies) is that if you click on “Unsubscribe” it sends them confirmation that yours is an active email address – which sends a signal to them and they then sell your address to other SPAMMERS. Yahoo.com has become a SPAM paradise lately, and I have chosen to “Block” addresses and domains that are the greatest offenders. The biggest one comes from the Netherlands: @canaldigitaal.nlI think I have successfully blocked the domain, since I haven’t received anything lately.

@Donald Williams: You are so correct! A good clue as to whether your addy was obtained that way is to check(if you can see them) the other email addresses that may be displayed. If some are similar to yours but just off a few letters/numbers/etc. then it’s a ‘shotgun’ approach that’s been computer generated in hopes that someone will ‘click’ on the unsubscribe button. Thus they then know that that’s an active address.