Receiving Unsolicited Email Newsletters?

Filed under: Scam » Spam,

Don't Remember Signing Up For That Newsletter?

Unsolicited Email Newsletters Recently we've noticed a proliferation of newsletters being sent out in unsolicited fashion. The aim being, it seems, to engage your attention and divert your attention away from the fact that you didn't request to be notified about this particular topic in the first place. Regardless of whether you're interested in the topic at hand, this is a violation of your privacy rights. And, in some cases, the newsletter will lead to a malicious source, that may contain viruses and or spyware. Here's how to handle these newsletters.

How to Handle Unsolicited Email Newsletters

First off, it's a good idea to screen all your incoming email with software that can prevent malicious email content and/or attachments from adversely affecting you. We recommend (and use ourselves) Firetrust's Mailwasher. Without a screener, we urge you to refrain from opening potentially questionable emails. This especially applies to their attachments.

Assuming you have email screening software installed that lets you view the contents of an email without opening it, you can take the following steps.

If you receive an email newsletter and don't remember requesting it, take the following steps:

Check and see what the recipient email address of the newsletter is. If it's not yours, or is sent to multiple people or "undisclosed recipients," it is most likely a spam email that may link to malicious content on the web (or contain a malicious attachment). Our advice is to delete it, and if you receive it again, file a report with us.
If the recipient of the newsletter is indeed your email address, you'll want to proceed to see if the newsletter appears legitimate or not. Look at (without clicking on) the website URL source (viewable in MailWasher) and see if it links to a legitimate website. You can type the website URL in a Google search box without actually visiting the site itself to get an idea of whether the site is legitimate or not.
Next, every legitimate newsletter should have an unsubscribe or remove me option, usually found in the footer of the newsletter. If your newsletter doesn't, chances are highly likely it's not legitimate. If there is an unsubscribe link, there's always the chance the unsubscribe link itself leads to a malicious source. For this reason, repeat the step above to analyze the unsubscribe source (website).
If you're certain the unsubscribe website is legitimate, go ahead and follow the unsubscribe process to remove yourself. If you're uncertain, feel free to comment below and we'll analyze for you.
Next, you'll want to report the sender to the newsletter provider, and make them aware that you received an unsolicited email newsletter from them. If they get enough responses, they will usually take action and close the offending account.

DMA Safe Harbor

The DMA (Direct Marketing Association) has a Safe Harbor act, the intention of which is to prevent unsolicited newsletters. Contact information for the DMA is as follows:

Safe Harbor
Direct Marketing Association
1615 L St, NW Ste 1100
Washington, DC 20036-5624
safeharbor@the-dma.org
DMAResponsibility.org

View Comments

Auto-unsubscribe issue

Submitted by a seeker of security on September 28, 2011 - 2:20am.

These are great points you raise here. Only problem for us marketers with the auto-unsubscribe approach is that if our newsletter is forwarded (with good intent, ie. you want a friend to read it also), and they unsubscribe because they don't realize it was forwarded, we'll have a legitimate contact (the original recipient of our newsletter) removed from our list.

To all the e-newsletter marketing companies out there (iContact, Constant Contact, etc.) - could you please address this?

Unsubscribe Option

Submitted by a seeker of security on January 21, 2011 - 4:33am.

I have to agree that there's nothing more annoying than getting signed on to multiple newsletters, even if they're legit (and even if they're from friends with good intentions . I don't mind as long as theirs an unsubscribe option, and it works (I tried to unsubscribe from a Best Buy email recently and it took forever (they said 10 days but it felt like longer) for those emails to stop showing up. I don't understand - do they manually process unsubscriptions?

Direct Marketing Association

Submitted by a seeker of security on January 1, 2011 - 7:13pm.

Thanks for providing the DMA's contact info. But let's be real here - do they actually get anything done? At best it will be the legitimate marketing people cold calling that will be hit. I don't think the DMA has much influence over the overseas scam artists...

I've noticed this too

Submitted by a seeker of security on December 3, 2010 - 3:58pm.

I've noticed this too.

But it is worse that you've outlined. The ones I am now seeing ARE legitimate mailings from legitimate organizations as far as I can tell. But they are still unrequested and to addresses that I would never use for such things (I use a different email address on EVERY web site that asks for one).

So they are especially hard to filter as they are not the usual scam spam and are coming to legitimate addresses.

I suspect that there are now organizations offering services to small businesses to get their newsletters out to a wider audience. Initially, the small business will not realize what is going on so will pay for the service until they start getting lots of complaints. By then the originating business will probably have gone bankrupt deliberately and disappeared.

Regards,
Julian Knight
it.knightnet.org.uk

Agreed

Submitted by A Secure Life on December 16, 2010 - 3:59pm.

Hi Julian,

First of all, thanks so much for contributing to several discussions on this site - your insight is invaluable and much appreciated.

I agree with you on the newsletter problem - there are plenty of "legitimate" companies that use questionable marketing techniques. Unfortunately, there are also plenty of scam companies with the technologies to make their mailings look legitimate. It's a fine line that can probably only be addressed by an Earthlink-style mailbox system that only lets through white-listed senders.