CODEWITHSUNDEEP
emailhtml-emailspam
user935712063
user935712063

Reputation: 1401

Unsubscribe links in email marketing

Just signed up a third party email marketing provider, when I provide the template they give me a small tag to place which they subsitute with a user specific unsubscribe link.

My concern is that the link is single click, there is no subsequent confirmation, etc.. and whilst I am all for easy removal, I worry that any combination of malware scanners, AV engines, spam scanners will follow the link and thus unsubscribe many legitmate users.

Is this the norm to have a single HTTP GET request unsubscribe a user? How are other developers handling this issue?

Note: The provider in question is critsend

Upvotes: 0

Views: 576

Answers (4)

b4hand
b4hand

Reputation: 9770

Any side effect changing HTTP GET request is non-conforming as far as HTTP is concerned. In particular, see this from RFC 2616, section 9.1.1:

In particular, the convention has been established that the GET and HEAD methods SHOULD NOT have the significance of taking an action other than retrieval. These methods ought to be considered "safe". This allows user agents to represent other methods, such as POST, PUT and DELETE, in a special way, so that the user is made aware of the fact that a possibly unsafe action is being requested.

It would be more standard to put the actual unsubscribe behind a form submission to cause a POST.

Upvotes: 1

Readysoft
Readysoft

Reputation: 9

The norm is once clicked, it goes to a form which you click a button to confirm removal. That's strange there are even single clicks avaliable

Upvotes: 0

John
John

Reputation: 12193

I know Campaign Monitor has built in procedures to catch non-user unsubscribes. Not sure about critsend.

Upvotes: -1

lukeA
lukeA

Reputation: 54247

Interesting question. It’s not the norm. But it’s common with cautious email service providers. For example, MailChimp also has a 1-click unsubscribe for his freemium users. I’m not a big fan of that, too. (I’d prefer a prefilled form field, where the user confirms his wish to unsubscribe by clicking "submit".) However, I didn’t witness any problems using 1-click-unsub until now.

FYI, here’s a discussion addressing a similar topic (false positive double opt-in confirmations). You might also want to check out this article and this discussion (forum registration required).

Upvotes: 1

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