I just have a quick rant today.
In the old days we had a thing called a “read receipt” in email where we could optionally allow a “receipt” of opening the email go back to the sender. We always had to allow this or not, and most people didn’t bother trying to request one.
But then senders quickly realized that all they had to do was put an image or something that is linked to an external URL into the email. When the email client requests this file, the host then has a log of the visit containing the usual stats from the visitor such as their IP address and other headers.
This was handled by email clients simply by not loading any external URLs. It didn’t load any pictures or media, and you had to allow that, which would naturally allow the trackers.
Email clients got smarter, they can detect if there is a “tracking pixel” verses normal images. They may allow downloading of images while blocking something that is specifically designed for tracking.
That leaves us to today. Bulk email tools which are heavily automated, will now send the same messages over and over if they don’t detect those tracking pixels. They assume the entire email went to spam or the user deleted without opening etc. So they automatically resend emails to people who couldn’t be tracked.
Now you have a dilemma, you either allow people to track you, or suffer receiving their same messages over and over due to dumb resending logic in bulk email programs which are designed to “increase open rates” by essentially harrassing the receiver that doesn’t allow tracking.
I do wonder what the next evolution will be. I don’t really mind that much that a bulk sender “knows” I opened the email if for no other reason they don’t harass me by sending them 2 or 3 or infinite times due to automation. At the same time, with advances in security, senders should know that many of us want no trackers or links at all in our emails because it’s still quite dangerous to ever click anything in an email, given the abundance of email scams based entirely on getting a user to click a link, that’s all it takes to begin spoofing a website or whatever.
Can we just get to a place where we can block everything, still have pretty emails, and not harass people with resending bulk over and over, and make content safe?
Email is getting smarter with things like buttons you can click in a message to automatically setup a calendar event. I like these sorts of smart things, but they must be controlled by the email client, the last thing we need is email being able to run full-on scripts in their messages that can affect the very apps they have.
I feel like some kind of regulation is in order so we stop the chicken dance between email clients trying to be protective and secure and safe, and then spammers and spoofers and bulk senders trying to thwart the email clients to get through. We need some protocols that keep everyone happy.
And I really hate the fact that we still can’t unsubscribe to things. Junk mail just keeps on sending with an alternate email, block it all you want, they just send again. You can’t trust their unsubscribe feature, all that does is prove you are a real person so they can sell your address to the next junk mailer as “valid”. We can’t trust unsubscribe buttons, we can’t trust the junk mailer to honor it, they send with infinite new email addresses. I’m so incredibly angry that I seem to have no control over who is allowed to email me and who gets through, and how poor “unsubscribe” really is these days. I have multiple such persistent senders in one of my accounts. I basically block this as junk every single time, yet they just keep coming anyway.
I know there are some extreme solutions to this, like email services that default to blocking everything unless you explicitly allow an address. But that is a ton of work to upkeep and still places all the hard work on me like it’s my responsibility to fight all the junk instead of all the junk by default never getting to me unless I find it and want it to begin with.
I’m not against “cold” emails by real people or businesses doing outreach for their services, but I’m HIGHLY aginst this common practice where people scrape my email from somewhere and inject me into their CRM or bulk email tool by default, then hook me up to their marketing messages just like any other bulk sender would. And then have the audacity to say “hey if you don’t want to hear from me, just unsubscribe!” I’m like bro, I never subscribed in the first place! Why is this allowed?
I’ve let these marketers email me without blocking or unsubscribing or anything. I just delete the emails when they come in. Over time I’ll have this huge thread of emails where they are responding over and over and over again, “hey, not sure if you saw my last message but…” Then “hey, I’m still waiting to hear if you…” “Hey, we seem to not be able to connect….” And it just continues on and on and on a dozen messages or more, their insane marketing automation tools that simply won’t give up, shoved me into a “funnel” I didn’t ask for, opted me IN and then makes it my responsibility to opt-out. Well that’s just nice, you know maybe every marketer in the world should just opt me right in to their newsletters without any action on my part, that should totally be allowed. Then I can spent 15 hours a day trying to unsubscribe to things I never asked for. Why is opt-in still not the default for everything?
Tell me, when is email going to finally evolve into something nice to use?
Even my phone now acts like this. Spammers somehow get my number and now I receive texts from them in an eternal “funnel”, oh but it’s ok, I can just reply to them to unsubscribe! Easy!
Our online lives and communications shouldn’t be controlled and abused by marketers. Hurry up and build systems designed for people to use without wasting our time. I think this is why a lot of people like using Discord or Slack and many others. Closed systems the marketers can’t take over yet. But hardly a good medium for more wide general communications.
I don’t mind receiving “cold” emails if they follow some rules: don’t contain tracking beyond “they opened it”. Don’t contain mysterious links such as link shorteners or anything that can’t be easily identified and perhaps scanne as safe by email servers and apps. Don’t opt me in to ANY sending tools, funnels, or tell me I have to now opt-out of your system. Do not put me in a “funnel” with 14,000 followup emails lined up for me every 2 days. It’s one and done. Don’t assume if I click a link or visit your site or open your email, that this is some kind of permissions to toss me into a bulk email tool either. Don’t send from an email I can’t reply to. If I want to followup, I’m clicking reply. I don’t want to click reply to some generic bulk email sender “noreply” address. If you want to appear legit, send from your actual email. You want to hide behind anonymous or unmanaged email addresses but you can email mine? I don’t think so. Expose your own email, show you are a real person.
These are all reasonable things. Just send me an email once and then forget me.
If cold email marketers knew they only had this one shot to impress me with their services or products, I think the emails would be much higher quality. And if I knew the email followed all these rules and was a legitimate service or business or person, I would be more inclined to read it and give a care. But if I see an email out of the blue that already has me in a funnel and subscribed me to their system, using trackers and generic noreply email from a bulk sender, I’m not taking you seriously and I’m deleting, blocking, marking as a spammer.