by Charles Miller

Years ago I wrote a column on the subject of trying to get unsubscribed from spam emails. Back then a friend told me they were receiving a number of unwanted spam emails, and at the bottom of each email was a link on which she could click to "Unsubscribe." My response was "NOOOOO!!!!"

My friend confirmed that clicking on that link did not seem to have any effect, and if anything she thought she might be receiving even more spam emails. It was well known amongst tech people that clicking on that "Unsubscribe" link rarely does what is implied. What clicking on that "Unsubscribe" link actually did was to verify that your email address was still active so that the sender knew to keep sending you spam. Moreover, some disreputable companies added your name to lists of verified email addresses which they then sold to other spammers thus resulting in your receiving even more trash in your inbox. I always recommended that people should never click on that "Unsubscribe" link in spam emails, largely because clicking on links in emails is still to this day one of the most exploited attack vectors for infecting your computer or smart phone with malware.

That was all true many years ago, yet what I have read in the tech blogs I follow is that things have changed slightly since the last time I offered advice on this subject. For one thing, in the U.S. there is now a law on the books named the "Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act" that can make sending spam a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. Of course the old axiom "When owning guns is criminalized only criminals will have guns" applies here. Scammers could not care less about the law, but law-abiding senders of spam have to honor unsubscribe requests, and most do.

Also, there has been a noticeable uptick in the number of companies online that make it absolutely obligatory to reveal your real working email address; you cannot give them a made-up address. That was the situation I confronted when I could not book travel tickets online until the web sites confirmed that my email address worked. Back home after the trip I started receiving unwanted spam emails from two airlines, two bus companies, Amtrak, and the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority.

Trusting that if the email is from a reputable business, they would probably follow the law requiring them to stop sending me spam email within ten days, I clicked on the "Unsubscribe" link in those emails. In my case this worked and the unwanted emails stopped, though I understand the law allows them to contact me again perhaps once every few months.

None of the information in the previous paragraph applies to spam emails from a dubious or unrecognized source. Clicking on the unsubscribe link or any link in one of those emails could be very risky, possibly taking you down a rabbit hole leading to more spam, a malware infection, identity theft, or worse. For those spam emails the advice I have given many times still applies: Never, never, never, never, never, never, never, ever click on links in unsolicited emails!

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Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant with decades of IT experience and a Texan with a lifetime love for Mexico. The opinions expressed are his own. He may be contacted at 415-101-8528 or email FAQ8 (at) SMAguru.com.

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