Why you should never unsubscribe from certain emails

Updated November 2023:

If you think the way to get less spam email is to click the “unsubscribe” link – not so fast. While legitimate email senders often will remove your email address from their list, spammers use unsubscribe links in emails to track people that take the time to open email and click the link. They then target you for even more junk email.

Some methods that you can use to help identify legitimately sent emails include:

• Have you knowingly given your email address to the sender?
• Look to see if the “from” email address closely matches the company that it says it came from. For example if you get an email from “JCPenney” promising $10 off, but the email address displays something@bestdeals.biz or someone@gmail.com – that’s not an email from JCPenney.
• Does the grammar, spellling and punctuation in the email make it seem as if it was professionally written?
• Click here for more examples of emails that aren’t from who they say they are.

You should only unsubscribe from emails that you are absolutely sure that they came from a legitimate company that you have given your email address to or conducted business with. Otherwise, just mark the email as Junk/Spam to help train the computer programs that filter your emails to the Inbox or Junk/Spam folders.