Often these "spam" reports by end users are just accidental clicks as well. Many of the abuse reports we get are like an email from someone's Mum and visibly legitimate. At other times there are users who use the Report Spam function as a kind of inbox management tool - a way of moving mail away so they don't have to see it because Trash or Delete or whatever is just further away from their pointer.
I tell my friends and family to never click unsubscribe links, unless they had proactively subscribed. Buying something from a company that requires an email does not count. unsolicited marketing emails are spam and should be treated as such. Double so if that company sends marketing emails disguised behind support@company.com.
> Double so if that company sends marketing emails disguised behind support@company.com
That’s typically not a disguise but a clear means of indicating that you can reply to the email
No, sending marketing from support emails is almost certainly trying to game spam filters. Marketing@company.com would work for the allow replies purpose.
> sending marketing from support emails is almost certainly trying to game spam filters
That is not how spam filters work.
If I've interacted with a specific email address, like support@company.com, my email provider will put them in my inbox.
How is it not a disguise? It means you can't block marketing emails without also blocking the legitimate support emails.
"Report spam" is quicker and easier than "unsubscribe".
Gmail added a popup asking the user if they want to unsubscribe when flagging a newsletter with the appropriate unsubscribe headers, so it must be common enough to warrant Gmail developer attention.
Pretty sure hotmail/outlook also has the same sort of popup for spam reports. I think accidental would be kind of hard with that popup.
Does gmail still insert ads in the free tier? That would be a reason to keep people reading as many emails as possible.
> Gmail added a popup asking the user if they want to unsubscribe when flagging a newsletter with the appropriate unsubscribe headers
Unfortunately close to 100% of the spam I'm flagging causes this popup now :-/
I'm getting a dozen spam a day now on my Gmail account ... I think they're losing the battle.