Not getting your Digest

Not getting your Digest: a reader asks..

I’ve been following you for years, and have been getting your weekly emails. But the last few weeks I haven’t been getting them. Have you stopped sending out your emails?

First off, thanks for being a loyal reader! The short answer is no, I am still sending out my weekly digest of articles I’ve written. These go out every Friday morning, with links back to my website and the latest articles I’ve written.

I follow the tenets of the CAN SPAM Act and GDPR when it comes to sending out emails. I don’t want to be characterized as a spammer any more than any other legitimate business, so I’m very careful to manage my mailing list. My digest goes out to thousands of people around the world, and I have to use semi-automatic management tools, I simply can’t eyeball every subscriber’s status.

Your email address got caught in one of those tools. Specifically, my system is set up so that if I receive a “Non-Delivery Report” or NDR from any email I’ve sent out, that tells me that the email address is no longer working, or is rejecting my emails. When that happens my system automatically unsubscribes the email address. Likely what actually happened is that your email account was full and your email service provider stopped accepting emails until you cleared out enough old emails to get your account underneath the pre-set volume limits they established.

This is a problem with email, exacerbated by the proliferation of spam – unwanted emails including solicitations, scams, and advertising. This problem is so bad that, at any moment in time, spam accounts for 90% of the emails circulating around the internet on their way from a sender to a receiver. It’s insidious, and so email service providers put limits on how much email your account can store. Email providers also use a lot of other tactics to try to keep spam out of your inbox, some work better, some not so.

I’m sorry that you haven’t been getting my emails, but in order for me to conform to best practices in this area, I have to ask you to re-subscribe on the right side form on my website (or here). I follow a double-opt-in process (another best practice), so when you subscribe, you will immediately receive an email from me asking you to confirm you want to subscribe. Please click the link in that email to confirm and you’ll be back on the list.

Sorry I can’t do this for you, but I have to follow these practices to ensure I’m not labeled a spammer. Spammers and spam is pretty horrible and pervasive, and we all have to do our part to fight against this internet disease.

On a related note, how you treat the spam emails that do make it into your inbox can help or hurt the fight against spam. For Gmail users, there’s a handy button to instantly report spam. Google uses your responses along with millions of other Gmail users to fine-tune their spam detection algorithms, which work to keep spam from every disgracing your inbox in the first place. So Gmail users should help out by using that spam button on unsolicited emails. Other email service providers may have their own methods. You can also report spam by forwarding the offending email to spam@uce.gov or use a 3rd party service like spamcop.net.