Rubenerd

It’s Friday, so time to crack open the fan mail and read some spam!

But first a bit of background. As I’ve written here ad nausea (gulp), there is one (and only one) correct way to handle unsubscribing from newsletters: opt-in, and with a single-click unsubscribe feature in the footer of the aforementioned message. Most people don’t do this.

Today, we have a competitor to Soylent:

You receive this loveletter because you’ve ordered Joylent in the past with your address [..].

Gameshow buzzer sound! But do go on.

If you don’t want to receive our mailing anymore, please click here to unsubscribe.

Fair enough, so I clicked unsubscribe.

In order to confirm your unsubscription an email has been sent to you. Clicking this link will delete you from the mailinglist!

Nooooooo!

This gets 30% on the Rubenerd Newsletter–Unsubscribe Score Card. I docked an additional 10% because “No need to confirm unsubscribe” failed in the form of an extra email, not just a superfluous web prompt.

[ ] 50%  Newsletter was opt-in in the first place
[x] 10%  Unsubscribe link exists in newsletter
[ ] 10%  No need to confirm unsubscribe
[x] 10%  No need to login to unsubscribe
[x] 10%  No need to find “email preferences”
[x] 10%  Reasonable time to unsubscribe (< 48 hours)