Ask HN: How to implement a national "do not email" list

1 points by tonymet 11 hours ago

Follow-up marketing emails have become obnoxious. Every point of sale (especially brick and mortar) sends a marketing follow up, and it’s not clear how to opt out during the transaction.

Restaurants, bars, parking apps, ticketing apps , first parties, third parties are all “spamming” with promos, surveys.

Since cash is not an option, a single night on the town results in 6-12 emails the following day.

Since no one is addressing the network affects, nor tracking the violations to the CAN-SPAM act

my question for HN community is:

How would you create a national do-not-email list to opt out of automatic marketing enrollment during the point of sale.

apothegm 10 hours ago

Just like the national do not call list it would become an immediate source for those who don’t care to follow the law, namely phishers and other scammers.

  • tonymet 8 hours ago

    I agree , but you could use a vendor specific hash and log the read operation .

toomuchtodo 11 hours ago

With a federal law or regulatory rule (FTC). Failing that, more aggressive spam filtering.

  • tonymet 11 hours ago

    The issue is false-positives. I do need transaction confirmations, receipts. So spam filtering won’t work in this case.

    CAN-SPAM should cover this case. Vendors are supposed to be obtaining consent.

    • toomuchtodo 11 hours ago

      Have you reported any of these emails under CAN-SPAM?

      • tonymet 8 hours ago

        Yes with no real outcome