Adventures in unsubscription
by Doc Searls Monday, June 18, 2018

I'm unsubscribing to all emails that might be tracking me. So far I've unsubscribed from dozens, I'd guess.

The latest is @ShellyPalmer's list. It's not personal. I'm unsubscribing from every list that might be spying on me, and I can't tell which are, which aren't, or (if they are), how. Because there's nothing in the cruft that follows a link that tells me anything about the purposes of that cruft.

In my unsubscribe note to Shelly's list, which I posted under "Other (fill in reason below)," I wrote, "I like the list (and Shelly personally), but I'm also zero-basing all my email subscriptions. I'll re-subscribe to lists I like that don't track me personally. Unfortunately, I can't tell the difference yet. (Are you listening, MailChimp?) So, to clarify, I don't mind if this link ( https://shellypalmer.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c45bf0ae5539b15b901766ddd&id=e8d435f600&e=eab3b67a56 ) tells Shelly "a reader clicked on this" but do mind if it says "Doc Searls clicked on this." Is there a way to tell the difference? Either way, let me know: [email address]. Thanks! Bonus link (so you know where I come from on this): http://j.mp/adbwars ."

By the way, I only noticed Shelly's email service is MailChimp's because the unsubscribe page's favicon was theirs.

[Two days Later, and no word yet from either MailChimp or Shelly.]